


Pentagrams and Pomegranates Part I: An Ideal Husband

by Gabihime



Series: Pentagrams and Pomegranates [1]
Category: Magical Diary
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Age Difference, Boarding School, Damien Ramsey/Heroine (Magical Diary) one sided, Demons, F/M, Forced Marriage, Magic, Oaths & Vows, Older Man/Younger Woman, Teacher-Student Relationship, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2017-12-15 18:05:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 19
Words: 215,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabihime/pseuds/Gabihime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all well and good to promise to honor and protect someone, but the devil's in the details. Hieronymous Grabiner marries Amoretta Suzerain with the intention of protecting her from a family servitor. Little does he know that the manus is the least of her problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

Fiction is the most pervasive form of magic that human beings practice. In fiction one can revive the dead and travel through time. It’s just a matter of flipping back a few pages. Even after the end, one can begin again, at the beginning. Fiction is a way to live hundreds of lives in the span of a few years, to die countless deaths, and have dozens of passionate love affairs. Fiction is immortality, one of the truest ways that the dead communicate with the living.

The act of telling stories is an ancient magic, and a practical one. Fiction brightens a dark world, and helps us be who it is that we really and truly want to be.

It also warns us of our follies, makes us face our weaknesses, and forces us to consider points of view that are not our own.

To be a writer, one must -- by necessity -- also be a witch.

* * *

In the Green Mountains of Vermont State, there is a school. This school has stood for more than three hundred years hidden among spruce and fir trees. From even before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, this school has been a place where children grow into themselves, and become what it is they mean to be. It is a small school, woodsy and homey and old fashioned. There are no sports teams to rally behind, no marching band that travels to competitions near and far. To be sure, it is such a quiet school that some students inevitably find it to be tedious and boring.

This is Iris Academy, a school for witches.

You don’t believe in witches? Well, that’s understandable, because witches don’t want you to know about them. The witch world is kept strictly secret. It’s kept hidden from the mundane world of taxi cabs and insurance premiums and the Hubble telescope. That’s both good and bad, but it is what it is. That’s just how the world works.

Every once in awhile, a child who don’t know a single thing about the witch world will discover that they are a witch or a wizard themselves, capable of painting their own vision of the world across the wide, beautiful universe.

When this happens, the child is given a Choice: either they take a chance and enter into the mysterious and arcane world of magic, leaving their friends and family behind, or they forfeit their gifts forever, and their magic is sealed, leaving them a mundane human being with no memory of what it is that they have given up.

This is the story of one girl who chose to open the gate and cross the threshold into the witch world. This is a story about what she found there.

She found good friends, the kind she would keep for her entire life. She found that there were quite a lot of things about the world that she did not understand, and that the things she did not understand were not all magical in nature. She found that not everyone thought the way that she did, and sometimes she was right about things, and sometimes she was not right about things. The people she met became the new fabric of her life, and that sometimes she fought with them, and sometimes she laughed with them, and sometimes she cried with them. She worked very hard, she played very hard, and she thought about lots and lots of things.

She also found the place where she belonged, and the one person that she belonged with.

This is a destiny that she wrote herself.

For good or for ill, this is what she chose, and the world that was created as a result.

 _ **Pentagrams and Pomegranates Part I: An Ideal Husband**_ _Initium_

And now, you have also made the Choice.

I’ll see you at school.

\- L. B. B.


	2. Prologue: Infinite Debt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through eternity.
> 
> Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In some ways, perhaps, Marianne Amoretta Suzerain's life began on Dydd Santes Dwynwen, for that was the day she found herself unexpectedly married and then apparently abandoned, her bare feet cold on the stone floor of the shadowy dungeon, standing alone and holding two forgotten baskets that still trailed their ribbons toward the chilly ground.

And perhaps it was appropriate that they had exchanged their vows on the day that was sacred to Saint Dwynwen, because tradition and custom had dictated the identity of the unwilling groom, tradition and custom that she found strange and unfamiliar. She understood that it had all been done to save her life, that she in ignorance had broken a taboo that demanded a sacrifice before it could be forgiven, that Professor Grabiner had made the sacrifice in her stead: he would take her as a wife whether he wanted to or not.

 _The word of a wizard is binding,_  Petunia Potsdam had told her,  _And it is bound by more than honor, the desire to do right by someone else. The word of a wizard is bound by the old laws, the ones that govern the shape and nature of the universe. There is no defying what_ is.

'What _is_ ' seemed to be 'we will celebrate a wedding in high style, no matter what your feelings are on the subject.' It was strange being at the center of a knot of activity that she really wanted no part of. For many little girls who become older girls, a wedding is a sort of fairy-tale come true, a day of Cinderella magic when even a fireplace urchin becomes a beribboned princess, at least until the clock strikes twelve. Being at least a little sensible, although certainly quite eccentric, Amoretta was willing to give up the fleeting pleasures of princesshood for the guarantee that she wouldn't be left feeling cold and lonely after the stroke of midnight.

But it was like her father was fond of saying when she worried over some accident of fate:  _Life doesn't come with a guarantee. The only guarantee is that it keeps coming until it doesn't any more, and then you'll wish it did._

Even if she had been willing to give up on being a bridal princess, Amoretta still had the tender heart of a girl who calls all the flowers in the garden by personal names. She had dreamed of being loved and cherished by someone who thought of her as a bright light in a dim room, or the familiar brush of fingertips when one otherwise feels all alone. She didn't necessarily want danger and mystery, although she probably wouldn't have objected to them, being that she was of a highly imaginative bent. What she wanted most was that ' _bonheur dans la vie_ ,' something she had very little experience with.

She had read about love in books often enough, and she had reluctantly accepted one confession already, but what she really wanted -

It wasn't words: not empty promises, familiar excuses, or hollow platitudes. It was something that she wouldn't have traded for all the diamonds that have ever been bought or paid for with blood.

What she wanted, maybe it didn't even exist at all, and it was the same as when she had been a little girl, and crawled out her window and sat up very late in the garden, waiting for unicorns.

What she was facing this evening wasn't a unicorn.

It was a dragon.

While Amoretta dwelt long and hard on her fate, her fairy god-mother was hard at work, singing to herself about what nice work it was, if one could get it. Petunia Potsdam, headmistress of Iris Academy and resident fairy god-mother, was alive with spirit and activity. That effervescent lady danced first this way and that, spinning hopeful yarns about Amoretta's future marriage like they were dreams to be fashioned fully out of fairy-cloth. She was so full of good cheer one might have supposed it was her own wedding she was preparing for. She was the model of perpetual motion, leaving a veritable trail of sparkling fairydust behind her. As she hummed and chatted and promised good things for the future, she fitted Amoretta for a wedding dress, saw to her ritual cleansing (which involved a lot of scrubbing at the bathroom sink), and filled up all the uncomfortable silences with proverbs and sayings about weddings, some of which Amoretta was sure she just made up on the spot.

"After all, my darling, weddings are joyous occasions!" Professor Potsdam had reassured her while pinning up the hem of the wedding gown that had been produced from the depths of one of her closets.

 _I suppose she has this dress just in case,_  Amoretta thought to herself.  _Does this sort of thing happen regularly? The headmistress has certainly taken it fully in stride. I wonder if students are always getting married at witch school. If they are you'd think they'd put something about it in the orientation materials._

Petunia Potsdam was still chatting away. "And marriage is really quite splendid, when one marries the appropriate person," she was saying, "So try not to look so much as if you've been condemned to death, or you might hurt Hieronymous's feelings."

Amoretta had sighed then, because Professor Potsdam had hit it on the head like cracking nuts with a carpenter's hammer. This situation, she wouldn't say that it was  _possibly_  damaging to her generally positive relationship with Professor Grabiner so much as that it was guaranteed to destroy it utterly in a cataclysmic eruption visible from orbit. Amoretta had been slowly and carefully building a house of cards, and this marriage had appeared like a hurricane, dead set on wrecking her life. But Petunia Potsdam had already gone out of her way to make Amoretta understand that there was no avoiding her upcoming nuptials unless she wished to die and in the process irrevocably maim Professor Grabiner's soul.

She was just sixteen years old and she had never been kissed, but she was going to be married before the day was out.

The groom was - she did not want to think about the groom right now. Preparing for her part in the wedding was like preforming dental work on a rooster. Wherever Professor Grabiner was, whatever he was doing -

 _It's a cinch that he's not having a good time,_  she thought.

"Have you ever been married, Professor Potsdam?" Amoretta asked, hoping for some distraction from her own troubles. It wasn't as if she were really  _unwilling_ to marry Professor Grabiner, but it was that -

"Oh my, yes, chickadee," Professor Potsdam trilled in response, as happy as a fat little songbird sitting on a wire. She looked up from the hem of the wedding dress to give Amoretta a warm smile. "Seven blissful times already. And you know, since I am overseeing your wedding, and you are marrying Hieronymous, I think you ought to call me Petunia. Not when we're in class, mind, but when we're alone and cozy that seems quite fine to me."

 _Seven_ _times_ _._  Amoretta's mind spun more crazily than the time she had ridden the wild mouse four times in a row with no breaks. No wonder so many of the students called the headmistress of Iris Academy "Potty Potsdam."

"Seven," she stammered out, and then in her guileless inexperience asked what was perhaps an inappropriate question, "Why have you had so many husbands?"

"They weren't all husbands," Petunia Potsdam answered candidly and easily, not pausing a moment from the business of pinning up the hem of Amoretta's dress, as if nothing at all between heaven and earth could ruffle her feathers. "Some of them were wives, and one of them was something else entirely. As for why the number seven, it just so happens that my heart has been moved to devotion and despair exactly seven times in my life. Seven is a very lucky number, so I plan on keeping it at seven unless I meet someone so remarkable that my socks are literally knocked off."

Amoretta looked down at Professor Potsdam's socks, which were green and white striped in broad horizontal bands so that her legs with their fine ankles looked like sticks of peppermint candy. She was the good witch of the east.

"You really married every person you ever fell in love with?" Amoretta asked wonderingly.

This was a very novel idea even for Amoretta, who had consumed all sorts of  _fictional_  morsels about love, romance, and human relationships, and had constructed a patchwork picture of the world from them. She had what a charitable person calls 'a very idealistic view of the world' and what a less charitable person calls 'a very silly one.' But still, to marry absolutely every person you ever fell in love with, even Amoretta recognized that this was perhaps an untenable strategy. Besides, Amoretta was well aware that 'love' was not simply a synonym for 'marriage.' It seemed to her that often times, the two words had very little in common (except for a single vowel). Her years in boarding school had introduced herself to this idea. At school it seemed like most of the girls had parents who did not particularly like one another (or if they did like one another, they did not like one another for long). Their parents had been married sometimes four or five times, and as a result, these girls were generally quite disillusioned with the institution of marriage. They had very little interest in it.  _After all,_  one of her classmates had said to her last year, _it doesn't mean anything. It's just something you do so people won't talk, and because of the tax code._  At the time, Amoretta had thought this to be a very cool attitude for a girl all of fifteen years old, but had reserved judgement on the matter. It wasn't as if she thought that everyone ought to be married, but if one were going to bother with it at all, it ought to be for love, she thought. Anything else was simply wasteful. One only had so much time to live, after all.

"Of course," Professor Potsdam answered mildly. "I am a very determined woman, you see, and to accept any other course would have been very wasteful indeed," she said, echoing Amoretta's recent thoughts so strikingly that the bride-to-be looked up in surprise with flushed cheeks. Petunia Potsdam apparently didn't take any note of her reaction, because she continued on as if nothing had happened. "Love strong enough to bet your life and your heart on is not particularly common, my darling," she said, "So it is my considered opinion that when one encounters it, one should pursue it  _to_ _the_ _hilt_."

That was all well and good, like planting old seeds found at the back of the garden shed and wishing for them to come up hollyhocks, but -

Amoretta wrung her hands, nibbling on her bottom lip before asking, "And all your seven marriages, all seven of the people that you loved, did it all end well?"

Unexpectedly, Petunia Potsdam threw her head back and laughed, long and from somewhere deep in her chest. Amoretta stood there twisting her hands uncertainly while the headmistress recovered enough to speak.

"That is a question asked in youth," Professor Potsdam explained, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a bit of ribbon, "And one I do not have the grace to answer, or rather, I think you had best find the answer out for your own self. I can say, however, that _I'm still standing._ "

"You're not afraid of being hurt?" Amoretta asked, because at this point, she was not sure Petunia Potsdam was afraid of much of anything. It was as if every moment was a new, fascinating page in a picture book for her, something to be marveled at, but never something to be feared.

"Of course I'm afraid of being hurt," the headmistress answered casually, her head and shoulders fully under the edge of her ruffled bedskirt as she dug under the bed for some tidbit of trim she required. "But I'm much more afraid of  _not_ being hurt." She sprang up from under the bed with a flourish, brandishing a long golden ribbon, "If you let yourself become numb to pain, you also become numb to joy. Everything becomes gray and small, and eventually you find yourself wishing for your own death," she observed thoughtfully, staring absently at the floor, but then she was all sparkling smiles again, "At least, that is my own experience in life."

Amoretta did not want to be numb any more than she wanted to live in fear, but soon enough that would not be a question that she decided on her own any longer. She was going to be yoked, and she was filled with worry and dread that the person she was going to be yoked to would refuse to go forward the same as he refused to go backward. She was afraid that he would stand stock-still, as obstinate as a donkey in a rainstorm, and wait for time to put him out of his misery.

It was not the most romantic of sentiments.

"The marriage for a year and a day," Amoretta began haltingly, thinking of the glowering, brooding groom, wherever he might be, "You said, once the time is up the marriage can be dissolved or the vows renewed, depending on the wishes of the couple, but what if," she shifted from one foot to the other and the hem of her dress swayed as if she were dancing, "What if one person wants to dissolve the union and the other person wants to continue it? What happens then?"

"A marriage, like any relationship, is a partnership. It cannot go forward with only one person shouldering the responsibilities - " the headmistress explained in her classroom voice, busily tying the golden ribbon prettily around the handle of one of the baskets that had procured for the ceremony. Then as if the full portent of Amoretta's words had finally sunk into her skin, she stopped cold and fixed Amoretta with a surprisingly piercing stare. " _You_ _'_ _re_ _already_ _in_ _love_ _with_ _Hieronymous_ _Grabiner_ ," she realized wonderingly, and it was as if she had struck very accurately with a lash.

Amoretta squeaked in dismay at having her secret heart found out so easily and fell back bonelessly into the ruffled slipper chair behind her, her cheeks blazing scarlet, but then she was yelping in distress and fright because she had just sat down hard on one of the pins in her dress.

"Off with your dress, off with your dress," Professor Potsdam was crying, and Amoretta found her arms being raised over her head and the dress yanked quite off of her before she knew what was happening. "It's bad luck if you bleed on your wedding dress," she confided as she yanked the pin out of Amoretta's backside and then immediately pressed her hand to the small wound, murmuring some words as a small rune circle formed underneath her fingertips.

Even with the wound healed, Amoretta could not help but ruefully rub her bottom, because it kept her from meeting the headmistress's eyes after such an embarrassing revelation. Professor Potsdam might think it was all well and good to marry a student off to a teacher to save her life, but when it became plain that the student harbored  _inappropriate_   _affections_  for said teacher, perhaps all bets were off. Maybe they'd bury Amoretta on the campus, underneath a tree. She thought Ellen would put flowers on the little grave, even if Virginia never remembered to. She hoped people would think of her fondly even after she was gone, although she was fairly certain that Hieronymous Grabiner  _would not_.

"You know, my darling duckling, I never believed in all the rumors of your uncanny luck until this particular moment," laughed the headmistress, quite interrupting Amoretta's wistful daydreaming about her early death and quiet tomb. "Are you absolutely certain that you didn't know what would happen when your crossed those wards and broke his circle?" the headmistress leaned toward the hunched over girl until Amoretta found herself facing a hanging garden of Professor Potsdam's sunset-golden hair and the dangling crystals of her earrings.

" _Of_ _course_ _I_ _didn_ _'_ _t_ ," Amoretta blurted out, rubbing at her eyes with balled up fists like an angry kitten with something stuck to the end of its nose, " _If_ _I_ _had_ _I_ _wouldn_ _'_ _t_ _have_ _crossed_ _them_. I've been trying to make friends with him since the beginning of the year and now the only thing I'm sure of is that I've  _messed_ _everything_ _up_."

It all came out now, all her worries and her fears. He was sure to hate her now, and she deserved it, doing such a silly thing as she had done. Who in their right mind would have crossed a blazing ward into certain death, going right where they weren't wanted at all? She had done it because it had been the only thing she could do, given the circumstances. She had done it despite all she knew, despite all she had read. She had not been willing to watch him die.

And it was like a switch had been flipped in her fate, turning absolutely everything upside down.

She was going to be married, and far from being loved, the groom didn't even  _like_  her. In fact, at the moment he probably positively  _loathed_  her. He would not have gone to put flowers on her little grave. Of that she was certain.

She cried unashamedly, like a little girl who has just had three teeth pulled and two vaccinations. It was all very miserable.

Unexpectedly, Professor Potsdam put her arms around Amoretta's middle and gave her a good squeeze. Standing there sniffling and rubbing at her eyes, Amoretta could not help but find the whole situation exceedingly strange. She was standing in her underwear in Professor Potsdam's dainty bedroom, waiting to be married to Professor Grabiner, with a minor wound on her bottom and a very ragged one in her heart.

"Don't cry, my lambkin," Professor Potsdam comforted her, stroking her dark hair calmly, as if she might have been soothing a terrified alley cat. "Everything will turn out perfectly fine, you'll see. Really, this is the best thing that could have happened to the both of you, I think."

Professor Potsdam gave her a lace handkerchief to wipe her eyes on and Amoretta sniffled alarmingly as she did so, confessing her fears into the headmistress's shoulder, "I don't see how that's possible. He's so angry with me now, I don't have any idea what to do. What if he never speaks to me again?"

The headmistress chuckled, "I'm afraid that if you're going to be married to Hieronymous Grabiner then you're going to have to get accustomed to the fact that he will sometimes be angry with you, often through absolutely no fault of your own. It is one of his foibles, as I am sure you are becoming aware: he has a very short temper and he always jumps to conclusions." Then the good lady gave Amoretta a friendly shake and said, "You're just going to have to learn to deal with him in the best way that you can. Don't be afraid of him, no matter how he rails at you. His bark is much worse than his bite. You'll never get anywhere with him if you always try to walk on eggshells. Oh, pay him courtesy, certainly," she was saying, "He really loves to be flattered, although I think he'd die on the spot if he realized I had told you such a thing. Now, show me that smile you are so famous for, Miss Marianne Amoretta Suzerain. You will need all your confidence, kindness, patience, and cleverness if you are going to get through the coming year in one piece. A marriage is a journey, and while it is not one to be undertaken lightly, it is best to undertake it with a light heart."

"It all sounds very complicated," Amoretta lamented as the headmistress released her from her impromptu embrace.

"Of course it is," Professor Potsdam agreed, "Which is why it is so interesting."

* * *

And so Amoretta tried to face her wedding with all the kindness and courage she had. She gave him her best smile when Professor Potsdam led her into the flickering firelight where Minnie Cochran stood holding the wedding baskets, but her smile only caused his frown to deepen.

It was hard to remain positive and cheerful when it was so very clear that he was remaining civil only with difficulty. He did not touch her once during the ceremony, and looked at her as little as possible, as if she might be carrying an infectious disease that was transmitted by line of sight.

They exchanged vows in due course, and then he departed, leaving her with no qualms as to how he considered their marriage, such as it was. The strain of the situation had broken his civility in the end, and he had left her with a scathing remark that had made her ears burn.

 _This is impossible,_  Amoretta thought hopelessly.  _This is all impossible._

Professor Potsdam sighed after Grabiner had gone. "I swear, that man has such a flair for the dramatic. You'd think I'd just tried to cut off his toes, one by one." She fluttered one of her hands, "Instead I married him off to a very pretty girl who thinks well of him." She threw up her hands, "Well, sometimes he's so pettish that there's just no dealing with him." She turned to Amoretta and Minnie, "Well girls, I would have rather that the happy bridegroom had joined us, but we may as well go celebrate the event ourselves. I'll take you two out for dinner."

Minnie nodded obediently at this, ready to dutifully continue her part as witness, maid of honor, mother of the bride, and moral support until the bitter end, but Amoretta, left holding the baskets, shook her head.

She still believed in unicorns, after all.

"You go on without me," she said, and when she caught Professor Potsdam's frown she hastened to explain, "It's just that I think I ought to go try and talk to him. I know he's angry, and it might not do any good, but we are married now, so I don't think I could really enjoy myself if we went out and I knew he was just upstairs in his rooms stewing."

"You are braver than a lion, my lamb," Professor Potsdam laughed, "And more stubborn than a donkey. Just you stick to your guns, my dear. Rome wasn't built in one night, but the man who wants to move a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."

Minnie and the headmistress helped Amoretta out of her borrowed wedding gown, and then they excused themselves for the night, Professor Potsdam giving Amoretta explicit directions as to where she might find Professor Grabiner when he was 'in one of his sulks,' and Minnie giving her a look that was a strange mixture of admiration and forlorn farewell, as if she expected that Amoretta was going to her doom.

With one final, impossibly deep breath, Amoretta went to her doom.

* * *

The second floor hallway was empty and the school was very quiet. It felt very strange after the rush of the day.

 _I suppose this is what it always feels like, the evening after a wedding,_  she thought, only Amoretta was the one left sweeping up the streamers and the rice all alone, as if the fairy tale bride had gone off on her own to a castle far away.

Instead of receiving an all-expenses-paid happily-ever-after, Amoretta was left in her scuffed brown shoes and her familiar gray school robes. She looked like a first year student, not a newly married woman. She didn't even have a bouquet of flowers to dry out and save until she was old and wrinkled.

He didn't answer the door when she knocked, so she knocked again.

Still he didn't answer.

So she knocked again, not loudly, not insistently, but patiently.

And still he didn't answer.

"Professor Grabiner," Amoretta began, trying to keep her voice low and steady, "I just wanted to talk."

She heard the door rattle slightly, as if he had put his hand on the knob, but then the rattling stopped, as if he had drawn his hand away.

"I have nothing to say to you," he answered shortly, his voice muffled by the door that stood between them. "If you do not get yourself to bed this instant and stop hammering on my door, you will find yourself with demerits. It is now  _considerably_ past curfew."

"But - " she tried.

" _Go_ _to_ _bed_ ," he nearly shouted, and then she could hear his footsteps recede as he stalked away from the door.

Amoretta sighed and sank to the floor in the hallway, leaning her back up against the door that he refused to open for her.

 _I_ _just_ _wanted_ _to_ _talk_ , she thought.  _Professor_ _Potsdam_ _seems_ _sure_ _that_ _I_ _can_ _work_ _miracles_ _,_ _but_ _I_ _don_ _'_ _t_ _even_ _know_ _where_ _to_ _start_ _if_ _he_ _won_ _'_ _t_ _even_ _talk_ _to_ _me_ _._

Then she thought,  _What_ _would_ _I_ _do_ _if_ _he_ _were_ _a_ _wild_ _animal_ _?_ _What_ _would_ _I_ _do_ _if_ _he_ _were_ _a_ _wild_ _animal_ _afraid_ _of_ _everything_ _,_ _what_ _would_ _I_ _do_ _to_ _get_ _him_ _to_ _like_ _me_ _?_

That was a question she could answer for herself very easily, because hadn't she befriended all manner of things when she was a little girl? Creeping things and crawling things and hopping things and flying things; woodchucks and moles and fawns and robins and even the little lizards you could tickle with grass, she had made friends of them all, because as a little girl who lived in an isolated farmhouse in the mountains, they were the only friends to be had. Even later as an older girl, they were often the closest friends she made.

If she could befriend a skunk without being sprayed (often) then she could befriend Hieronymous Grabiner, even against his will.

The first thing to do was to get him used to her presence. If one was slow and quiet and above all  _patient_ , even the shyest creature would eventually become accustomed to one being around him. This was something she had already been working on all year, her house of cards that had been toppled by an unexpected storm. As it sometimes happened with wild animals, unforeseen events had done much to destroy the trust and familiarity that had stood between them before. The only thing to do was to start over from scratch, slow and patient and gentle. She would build another house of cards.

Thinking all of this over to herself, and feeling quite exhausted from the day's many difficult events, Amoretta Suzerain at last drifted off to sleep and spent her wedding night alone, sleeping on the floor in a cold stone hallway.

She was awakened in the pale, chilly dawn by being shaken so hard that her teeth rattled.

"I doubt you have anything resembling a suitable explanation for this, but  _what_ _are_ _you_ _doing_ _sleeping_ _in_ _my_ _doorway_?" Professor Grabiner demanded, still shaking her shoulder.

Being flopped around like a rag doll and still half asleep, Amoretta yawned, "Well, I told you last night that I wanted to talk to you, but you wouldn't let me in, so I thought if I just stayed here, eventually you would open the door."

For a moment, Hieronymous Grabiner seemed completely unable to speak or think, as if she had frozen him in place with a spell that stopped his personal time, but then he had found himself again and was sputtering, " _Ten_ _demerits_."

"Yes, sir," she yawned again sleepily, leaning against his hand. Amoretta did not immediately leap to her feet to get out his way and scurry out of his sight because she was sleepy and sore from having slept on stone, and he was being  _awfully_  bad-tempered.

Apparently disturbed that his habitual consignment of disciplinary action did not seem to be particularly effective this particular morning, Grabiner amped his voltage, booming, " _Twenty_ _demerits_."

All at once Amoretta came to the realization that Grabiner was willing to stand grimly in his doorway and dispense demerits until the sun collapsed in on itself. At last she scrambled to her feet and struggled to set her uniform to rights, fluffing her hair, which was rather flattened from having been slept on. She rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes and tried her best to look presentable despite the fact that she had slept on the floor in a hallway.

This done, she smiled as cheerfully as she was able and said, "Good morning, sir. Would you like to go to breakfast?"

Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of his hands curl into a fist, tremble, and then relax.

"No, I would not," he said shortly, and it was clear that he was controlling his temper with some difficulty.

She judged that now would be the appropriate time to retreat. Her goal was to get him familiar with her presence, not burn her face into his mind as an object of eternal scorn and ridicule.

"All right then," she said with the good nature of an early spring robin, although it wasn't easy to keep her smiles looking effortless when he was glowering like an angry tomcat, "I hope you have a pleasant day, sir," she wished genially, and the excused herself from his presence.

And this, of course, was the very beginning of her troubles.


	3. One: Mud and Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Wasn't marriage, like life, unstimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when too well ordered and protected and guarded? Wasn't it finer, more splendid, more nourishing, when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laughter and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt?"
> 
> Edna Ferber, Showboat

Beginning from that very first morning of matrimonial bliss - such as it was - Amoretta Suzerain made it a point to wake up unnaturally early to be at Professor Grabiner's door every morning, so that her smiling face was the first one he saw at the start of each day. It had given her a thrill the first time she had properly observed him emerging from his sanctuary like an ill-tempered dragon creeping out of his lair, and even afterwards, when seeing him each morning became familiar and comfortable - to her at least - it never ceased being  _exciting_. Although he kept himself under careful control, he was always a  _little_  like a wild animal. His temper was unpredictable, and she could never be sure when it would flare up unexpectedly.

One thing she did every morning, as regularly as clockwork, was ask him if he wanted to join her for breakfast.

Naturally, he always refused, but although it seemed as if he very much  _wanted_  to give her demerits to deter her from this behavior (and to discourage her from hanging around in the hallway in front of his quarters) there was really nothing particularly terrible about a student asking a teacher to breakfast at the school cafeteria. Amoretta was always polite and respectful and cheerful. He could not give her demerits simply  _for being nice to him_  - however much he may have wanted to - and so he did not, as if even he realized that this would be an abuse of his authority as a disciplinarian.

Clearly, after that first morning when he had levied the heavy sum of twenty demerits upon her, Grabiner had not expected her to turn up at his door again, looking bright and chipper despite the fact that the winter sun had not yet even considered that it ought to rise, but there she had been, the very next day, in her scuffed shoes and mismatched socks, with a 'Good morning, sir. It's another day in the trenches, isn't it?'

Twenty demerits was a considerable blow to her generally excellent school record, and put her in the purgatory of having negative merits. To be in the purgatory of negative merits for any amount of time was fairly dangerous, she thought. Although certain of her acquaintances we're always hovering around the zero mark due to a mixture of naughty behaviors and community service, no one who wanted to stay at Iris Academy let their merit record remain negative for long. There was always the chance of running into Grabiner and receiving twenty demerits at once, as she had done. She had read the orientation materials. Twenty demerits was almost halfway to expulsion all by itself.

It was a little strange, perhaps, that he'd given her twenty demerits but not a detention, but then again, perhaps it wasn't so strange after all, as Grabiner seemed intent on  _avoiding_  her as much as was humanly possible. He'd hardly have assigned her a detention and  _guaranteed_  himself a Saturday in her company. Really, Amoretta wouldn't have minded a detention, if it meant she got to spend the time with him, but  _she_  suspected that  _he_  suspected that she wouldn't really have considered such a detention a punishment, and therefore refused to give it to her.

_Miss Suzerain,_  he had told her icily one Saturday morning before their nuptials, when escapades with Donald Danson and Luke Phifer had landed her in detention,  _I am not employed by Iris Academy for your enjoyment and companionship. Detention is meant to_ deter _you from suspect behavior, not encourage it._

Fortunately for Amoretta, she was generally an excellent student, so she had positive examination scores to help off-set whatever demerits she incurred due to Grabiner's wrath, but as their situation _had changed_  she now foresaw trouble on the horizon if she did not keep herself focused on redeeming demerits with extreme prejudice. If he had seen it fit to give her  _twenty demerits_  before breakfast on the very first day of their married life together, then she was going to have to work exceptionally hard to get rid of demerits just to keep pace with him. Otherwise she was sure he would have no qualms about seeing her expelled and removed from his life entirely.

She was a complication. She was trouble. She was not really surprised that he wanted neither.

But Amoretta was bound and determined to recapture the small presence she had had in his life before he had summarily ejected her from it after their wedding vows.

She was stubborn.

Grabiner was stubborn.

And so her continued breakfast invitations had the effect of touching off an early morning arms race between them, where both parties strove to wake up earlier than the other so as to achieve their objectives.

Amoretta wanted to ask him to go to breakfast with her, and was willing to continue patiently asking him until the end of days, no matter how low her chances of success actually were. Grabiner wanted to avoid her entirely, if possible. As the breakfast greeting was pushed further and further back into the wee hours of the morning, before even the perching birds woke up to sing, Amoretta worried that they were approaching a flashpoint.

She desperately hoped it would not be a flashpoint worth another twenty demerits, because then she would be dangerously close to expulsion.

But Petunia Potsdam had told her: love was something that ought to be pursued  _to the hilt._  She would do just that, no matter how perilously close to annihilation she found herself, because although she was silly and tenderhearted, she was not willing to live her life in fear. Her father was fond of saying that risk was what buttered the bread of fortune.

The moment of crisis came one morning in February, when Grabiner, deprived of adequate sleep due to his ever-earlier hour of waking and deprived of breakfast many mornings by his own spiteful refusal to show his face in the cafeteria after he had declined her polite invitations, exploded like Vesuvius.

"Miss Suzerain, I am sure I cannot fathom the reasons behind your ridiculous behavior, although I assume that even  _you_  have some justification for your absurd actions," he began testily, his voice slowly rising in volume as he continued, his cool control finally slipping, "But do you honestly think that by appearing here every morning at the most inconvenient time and in the most inconvenient way,  _you_ _are_ _ingratiating_ _yourself_ _to_ _me_ _?_ _Do_ _you_ _think_ _that_ _by_ _sheer_ _stupid_ _tenacity_ _you_ _can_  force me  _to_ _do_ _something_ _I_ _am_ _clearly_ _unwilling_ _to_ _do_ _?_ "

Amoretta had expected this torrent of ash and smoke and anger, and because she had expected it, she weathered it rather well, keeping her cool, and not quailing, although she did bow her head deferentially during the height of his tirade so he would not construe her meditative calm as open rebellion.

_Into each life a little sooty rain must fall_ , she thought philosophically.  _And in the case of my life, perhaps a lot of it will fall._  She was ready for it. She had made friends with a skunk, after all. At least when Grabiner got angry he didn't leave her smelling like she'd rolled in a pile of moldy old sweat socks.

"No, sir," she denied, keeping her voice even and gentle with some difficulty, because despite all her resolve, Grabiner was fairly terrifying when his ire was raised, like an old, wrathful god who shook the heavens to communicate his anger. "I don't have any desire to force you to do anything," she said truthfully. "I just want to remind you that I'm willing to have breakfast with you, and that I'd like to, whenever you feel that might be appropriate. I worry," she paused, and her voice quivered slightly, because his eyes were heavy and the look he was giving her was as jagged as obsidian. She had to exert her will to finish what she meant to say. "I worry that if I didn't keep reminding you that I'm here, then you'll forget me."

" _Miss_ _Suze_ _-_  " he began, but then stopped himself as if biting his words back, " _Amoretta_ ," he continued, as if her name were a trial to say, "I am very sorry to inform you that I have discovered that it is  _nigh_ _on_ _impossible_ _to_ _forget_ _you_ _._ "

Although he had meant it as an accusation, Amoretta's heart fluttered madly at this confirmation of progress regarding the most special project of her school life. To befriend Hieronymous Grabiner was like taming a belligerent tiger with porcupines strapped all over it: not an easy thing, certainly, but thrilling because it was so challenging. If she could manage it without getting herself killed, expelled, or divorced, then she would have something to have and to hold, something even more impressive than the ability to conjure a light in a dark room with just a flick of her fingers.

_Maybe_ _Professor_ _Potsdam_ _is_ _right_ _,_ she thought, enjoying the heady rush of a minor triumph,  _Maybe_ _this_ _is_ _something_ _that_ _only_ _I_ _can_ _do_ _._

Certainly, Amoretta Suzerain and Hieronymous Grabiner had one thing in common, even if they had no others: they were both  _very_ _stubborn_.

Of course, they had quite a few other things in common as well, but this was something that neither of them were equipped to recognize at the time, although Petunia Potsdam suspected it, which was why she thought well of Amoretta Suzerain's chances of surviving the bizarre gauntlet of her unexpected marriage, in spite of, or perhaps  _because_  of her unconventional personality.

Amoretta bowed her head to him respectfully and said, "Since I don't think you want to have breakfast with me this morning, I hope you have a good day, sir, and I'll see you in class."

With that, she left him in the hallway still glowering like an old hinge in need of oil, and she skipped off, as if she were ready to tend to a whole garden full of flowers, despite the February chill.

* * *

But there is more to tell, some things that happened a bit before that, when our heroine was quite newly married.

That first morning following her nuptials, still sore from having slept on the hard stone of the hall, Amoretta returned to her room in the hours before breakfast to make herself more presentable for the day's events. Ellen had been somewhat scandalized that Amoretta had not come home that Saturday night, but when the girl explained that she had simply fallen asleep on a bench in the academy's park, both Ellen and Virginia had been willing to believe it, which said much about what they were willing to accept about Amoretta and her sometimes  _excessively_   _strange_  behavior.

"You're lucky you didn't die of exposure," Ellen had mother-henned, clicking her tongue, "It was awfully cold last night. You could have gotten frostbite. Show me your feet," she demanded.

"I don't have frostbite," Amoretta waved her off, flushing. "I cast a warming spell so I wouldn't freeze, and I just fell asleep in it."

"I didn't know you could cast a warming spell," Ellen said, her face showing honest surprise.

Amoretta couldn't, of course, but she pushed forward anyway, determined to bull her way through this inquisition. "I have lots of hidden talents!" she insisted.

Ellen was right about the cold, though. Amoretta thought that if she actually  _had_  slept outside, she would have probably frozen solid into a beautifully tragic ice sculpture, one that might have been properly titled 'love's patient repose' and been exhibited in melancholic art galleries worldwide. It had been cold enough sleeping in the hallway without a blanket.

"You're more lucky that Ol' Grabby didn't catch you out past curfew," Virginia laughed, because she apparently thought the idea of sleeping outside in January was quite exciting and interesting, "Or you'd have about a million demerits."

"He did and I do," Amoretta agreed sheepishly, then paused, one finger pressed curiously to her lip, "Do you think if I get enough demerits they'll remove me from office as student council treasurer?"

"I dunno," wondered Virginia aloud, folding both arms behind her head lazily, "But I bet you'd have to do something pretty bad to get kicked out of office, not just a lot of little things, if that's what you mean."

Ellen was still concerned, turning her head slightly to one side as she regarded Amoretta very pointedly, "You've never had problems with your record before. You're a very good student. Has something happened? Is there a reason you're so worried?" She paused, as if silently collating facts. "You were gone all day yesterday, and then you stayed out all night. Did you get involved in something awful? Have you become a juvenile delinquent?" she worried, steepling her fingers in front of her face. "Is it the Phifer twins? Have they gotten you into trouble? I told you I didn't think it was a good idea for you to play craps in the hallway with a lot of rowdy boys."

It taxed Amoretta's abilities of intrigue to the limit not to reveal anything to Ellen at that moment.

"We don't play craps," she corrected absently, lost in thought. "We shoot craps."

Amoretta had never been very good at putting people off or at concealing her emotions, one of the reasons her father joked that she would never be a professional gambler. She was a girl who wore her heart on her sleeve, and she now found herself in a situation where she had to justify her actions with things other than the truth.

"I'm not in trouble and I didn't become a delinquent," she tried to reassure Ellen with only partial success. Ellen was thoroughly sure that Amoretta had the sort of genuinely sweet and gullible personality that is very easily led astray, and Amoretta knew it. "Well, I am in trouble with Professor Grabiner, like I said," she admitted, "But most people are in trouble with him at least  _some_  of the time. I guess I'm just worried that if I make too many little mistakes, I might get removed from office on account of being a bad influence. Being the treasurer for the freshman class means that I come into contact with Professor Grabiner a lot. Let's just say I'm willing to believe he  _might possibly_  give me some more demerits before the year is out."

Virginia flopped back on her bed again and writhed around a bit, making her curly hair bounce around her face as if it were alive, "I wouldn't worry too much about it," Virginia said with a shrug. "I think Potty Potsdam just  _loves_  for people to make mistakes. She told me that 'it helps with the learning process' when I blew up the wrong wall in the last examination and almost got squashed by some falling rubble." She threw her arms up above her head. "As for Grabby, that's the reason I didn't want the job. There's no way I'm going to get all buddy-buddy with that old sack of - "

" _Virginia_!" Ellen interjected, scandalized. It was as if she feared that the unpopular professor had put a trip spell on his name, and would know when he was spoken of with a lack of dignity and respect. Ellen didn't relish receiving demerits any more than Amoretta did. Virginia, however, had the inborn Danson disregard for consequences.

"Honesty is the best policy," Virginia responded with a grin.

Ellen rolled her eyes. "There's a difference between 'honesty' and 'provocation,'" Ellen reminded her. "Besides, if you got elected treasurer, I think Professor Grabiner might resign from his position on the spot, considering how well you get along."

Virginia laughed at that, wrinkling her nose.

"Probably right," she said.

"And I don't think you'd be very good at waking up early every Saturday morning either," observed Ellen candidly, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Yeah, if I were treasurer the weekly allowances would be delivered around noon," Virginia agreed, "Which probably means I wouldn't be treasurer for all that long. You just keep getting the cash out on time," Virginia winked at Amoretta, "And I doubt that you'll be impeached before you're kicked out of school. After all, nobody else wants the job. You have to wake up really early on the weekend and you have to deal with Grabby basically all the time. It's something only a crazy goon would sign up for."

"Then it sounds perfect for you," Ellen teased, and then Amoretta had to dodge a pillow that Virginia threw at her.

* * *

Although the floor of the hallway in front of Grabiner's door had been cold and hard, Amoretta had slept soundly on it, likely due to the fact that the events of the previous day had totally exhausted her. But sleep is one of nature's little miracles, and after a shower and a change of clothes, Amoretta felt refreshed and ready to tackle anything that life threw at her.

Anything at all, excepting  _one thing_.

This one thing she was not yet ready for seized her wrist the moment she left the safety of her dorm room and pulled her aside, pressing her back against the wall.

Damien Ramsey was angry, that was obvious, and she could not help but feel he had a right to be. She had promised to spend Saturday with him in town and had instead spent the entire day on Iris Academy's campus, first in the rooms of the headmistress, and then in the dungeons, and finally on the floor in front of Hieronymous Grabiner's door. She had no excuses for her behavior. She had stood him up like a champion heart-breaker, and she felt like a heel about it.

The worst part was that she hadn't simply stood him up like an awful monster, she had gone and gotten married in the meantime, right after her had bared his soul before her and begged her for a chance at winning her heart. Amoretta had been reluctant to make any sort of commitment to Damien when he had confessed his tortured affections to her. She did, after all, already love someone else, although it was a someone who was very unlikely to return her affections before pigs miraculously grew wings and learned the secret of aerial locomotion. She cared about Damien very much because he was a friend, and more than that, he was a friend in need. He could be a little jealous of her time, but this was a fault she was willing to accept. She was really the only close friend that he had.

So despite the fact that she didn't love him, not in the way one loves a lover, she found that she couldn't leave him alone. She denied his requests to be with her twice, but the third time he looked so forlorn and lost that her resistance crumbled and she accepted him. She was the sort of girl who had a difficult time saying no to someone who was obviously in pain and in need, no matter the consequences she faced as a result. She had never had a boyfriend before. She had never been kissed. She knew that Damien had had any number of paramours in his storied past. He was well known on the campus of Iris Academy as both a lady-killer and a man-eater, although when he stood in front of her with his head in his hands he seemed much more like a lost little boy than he did like a wolf (or a falcon). Virginia might have warned her that it was dangerous to play with fire, but Amoretta believed Damien when he swore to her that what he wanted least of all in the entire world was to hurt her.

Like the snapping of fingers she had become his girlfriend, although she had secured his promise that they would not rush things, but take each day slowly and carefully. The last thing he needed was another gruesome heartbreak, and she did not want to see their friendship shattered on the rocks of a rushed romance. She didn't love him, but she was very  _fond_  of him, and she was certain of one thing if she was certain of no others: he needed her very much. Perhaps that was enough.

Besides, there wasn't much harm to be done on weekend trips to the shopping mall, she thought. They would eat some ice cream together and maybe he would take her to the end of term dance in May. It would be nice to have someone think of her, and to think of them. He was her very first boyfriend, and so she thought of things in the way an elementary student might. They would be good friends and playmates, and she would be kind to him when he had troubles, and maybe he would kiss her every once in a while.

That seemed all right, like it would be a good learning experience.

Even if it didn't end well, she felt certain that some good memories would be born, and that Damien would find himself better than he had been before. Perhaps she would turn out the better for it, too. Besides, her schoolmates from the previous year had been very adamant about the fact that having one's heart broken was an important benchmark on the road to becoming an adult.

Perhaps it was unkind of her to regard her budding relationship with Damien Ramsey as a sort of science experiment, but that was the nature of her character. She was  _interested_  in practically everything.

And she was willing to do her best if she was needed.

So she had agreed to go out with him, to be his 'sweet, innocent girl,' the one he often called 'kitten,' as if she were both adorable and utterly defenseless. She doubted that she would fall miraculously in love with him as a result of their new-found relationship, and her honest heart dictated that she owed it to him to tell him so. She wouldn't lie to him, not even the littlest white lie. She told him that she didn't love him, awkwardly and shyly, but he was unworried by the confession.

They would take their time, he said. He had faith in his charms, he laughed. So long as she gave him a chance, he would sweep her off her feet.

Of course, Amoretta didn't tell him that she was already stupidly in love with someone else, because that was the carefully guarded secret of her heart, and it didn't have anything at all to do with Damien Ramsey. He was jealous, and she worried he would bully her about it, tease her and make her feel ridiculous.

It  _was_  ridiculous, after all. Something actually happening between she and Professor Grabiner was just as likely as tulips sprouting up among Big Steve Kenyon's curls. Therefore it wasn't really being duplicitous, she thought. Being in love with Hieronymous Grabiner was like being in love with a dead president. Nothing was likely to come of it but bad poetry and binges of ice cream eating. It was like singing songs to the moon and expecting a response.

After all, Virginia had teased her for weeks when she had admitted being partial to the man the youngest Danson called "Grabby" or sometimes "the Grabiner," as if he were a fabled leonine beast with the spite of an eagle, the cunning of a snake, and the temper of a goat.

But, despite everything sensible and reasonable that she might have expected from her spring term at Iris Academy, stars had crossed and the impossible had happened.

_She had married Hieronymous Grabiner._

Which left Damien, through absolutely no fault of his own, entirely out in the cold.

She was a heel.

She knew she was a heel because she didn't even have to pause for a moment to consider what she might have done if she had been given the choice to marry Grabiner or to remain faithful to Damien.

She had broken Damien's trust with a sledgehammer before it had even really begun to grow.

She was an awful person, and more awful still, she thought, because she didn't regret it.

She didn't regret anything, not for a moment, not the slightest bit.

Damien had  _every right_  to be angry with her.

And he was.

Although he really had no way of knowing the extent of what it was she had gone and done,  _he was angry_.

All six feet of his dusky blue frame was coiled up, like he was prepared to pounce upon her if she gave him an answer he was not ready to hear. He curled his fingers tightly around her shoulders, as if he feared she would escape if he let go of her. His hands seemed strangely warm, even through the fabric of her robes. It was as if he were literally burning up.

"Where were you yesterday?" he demanded, "I waited at the cafe  _for hours_. You never came and I didn't have even a  _single word_  of where you'd been and why. And then I see you sailing in this morning - Don't take me for a fool, little girl. I know you didn't sleep in your own bed last night - "

All at once his tirade stopped and he pushed her away from him, although he kept a firm grip on her shoulders, as if he wanted to see what she looked like at arm's length. His mouth was hard and his violet eyes were so dark they might have been chunks of coal, their gleaming hazy with dull, subtle mystery.

It felt like he was staring into her soul, and Amoretta unconsciously felt violated and began to squirm slightly, although he made no move to release the hard grip he had on her shoulders. His eyes were like knives that first split her open, neck to navel, and then flipped adroitly through her moist innards in search of her darkest secrets. Her cheeks flushed scarlet under his gaze and she tried to cover her unease by beginning a stream of babble about how she had fallen asleep in the accounting room after delivering the mail, and how she thought she might have the flu or mono or rocky mountain spotted fever or maybe even West Nile Virus and she really probably ought to go to the doctor to have it diagnosed if she kept feeling so sleepy all of the time -

After staring at her hard, all at once he released her shoulders and she fairly slumped against the wall, as he had been holding her up against it almost on her tiptoes.

Behind him, his broad, claw-tipped wings spasmed once, contracting tightly to his body as he said, "I see," between gritted teeth, his beautiful face contorted by anger as he snarled the words out.

Then he turned from her with so much force that his hair and his cape flared out behind him, and he stalked off down the hallway without looking back.

Behind her, the door opened and Virginia poked her head out.

"What a colossal jerk," she said. "Hey Cassanova," she yelled after the departing demon before Amoretta could stop her, "Don't let the door hit you on your fancy rear end when you go!"

Amoretta threw her hands up and covered Virginia's mouth, shoving her back into the room and closing the door behind them before the demon boy decided he had  _further words_  for the both of them.

Amoretta sighed inwardly and slumped with her back against the inside face of the door, because certainly she had deserved the telling-off that he had given her, and probably a lot worse besides. Damien was vulnerable already, friendless and uncertain and bullied, and then she had made a promise to him and broken it without warning or proper explanation. It didn't matter that she had broken their date getting married to Grabiner against her will, because it hadn't  _really_  been against her will. She had been in a position of trust, and she had broken that trust without regard for his feelings.

Even if she had only been his girlfriend for a matter of hours, his feelings still counted for something, and she had trampled on them.

She couldn't even try to explain things honestly to him, even if she wanted to. Grabiner had been sworn her to secrecy regarding their marriage. She would speak of it at her own peril. It was a threat she was sure he would make good on.

Virginia frowned at her, her hands on her hips.

"Don't tell me that you're actually sorry that that dirtbag hit the road," she demanded. "I told you he was bad news. If it looks like bad news, smells like bad news, and acts like bad news, then it's bad news, sister. Didn't your mama ever teach you that?" she demanded.

"My mama never taught me anything," Amoretta reminded mildly. "I feel bad about things," she admitted to Virginia, twiddling her thumbs awkwardly. "It was all my fault. I did something pretty terrible to him."

"Well then, he deserved it!" Virginia insisted righteously. "He's not a falcon. He's a snake. I hope you're through with him now."

Virginia would get her wish on one count. Now that she had married Professor Grabiner her fledgling romance with Damien had certainly ended. No matter how little Grabiner might have cared about her, she would not divide her attentions. It no longer mattered if Damien needed her or wanted her as something other than a friend. She had given her word and her heart to Hieronymous Grabiner. She would not give it to anyone else, even if he did not particularly want it. To do otherwise would have been truly cruel to both men, and likely caused more mayhem than Amoretta could have managed, even accidentally.

She would give Damien a proper apology later, once he had cooled down a little, and hope that their friendship could be salvaged, although it was more than she deserved. Perhaps his anger would cool his affections toward her a little. That would be for the best, she thought.

She had her husband to think of, after all.

Husband.

_Her_ _husband_.

That was right.

Hieronymous Grabiner was her husband, although she had no ring on her finger to prove it. Witches didn't exchange rings regularly, she had learned.

But even the word itself was enough to make her heart race, her cheeks flush, and to make Amoretta think that she ought to have a lie down, despite the fact that she had only just finished her morning shower and then had an awful row with her former boyfriend.

She took several deep breaths in an attempt to slow her rapidly beating heart, but she could do nothing to cool her rosy cheeks.

Virginia looked at her with drawn brows and a wrinkled nose, as if Amoretta's skin had suddenly erupted in a number of clashing plaids.

Amoretta giggled and turned the knob at her back, swinging out on the door as if she might have been on a playground.

Feeling as light as air and nearly as giddy, she did a little pirouette in the middle of the hallway, the skirts of her robe flaring out around her as she spun.

After all, this was the first day of her wedded life.

* * *

Naturally, it wasn't all garlands of roses, impromptu dances in the hallways, and clandestine meetings.

In the end, Amoretta found that the garlands of roses she acquired were the ones she braided herself, and that they tended to be made out of construction paper rather than actual roses. If she danced in the hallways, she always did so alone, and the most clandestine of meetings she had with Grabiner were the ones where he refused to have breakfast with her.

But she persevered. After all, Petunia Potsdam had said it: Rome was not a city to be built in a day. Everything worth doing took a great deal of time and effort, and winning over Grabiner was no exception.

At first her classes in blue magic were much more difficult than they had been before, because her irate (beloved) professor developed a new habit of putting her on the spot and demanding answers to questions that were far above the knowledge of even a clever freshman student. He had even given Ellen demerits at one point when she offered to help explain a difficult concept to Amoretta, one involving compound spells interacting when placed in the same field. It was something that even star pupil Ellen Middleton was familiar with only due to a great deal of extracurricular reading.

"Speaking out of turn, Miss Middleton," Grabiner had snapped as he cut her off, his arm striking out like a snake to brandish his book at her as if it might have been a ruler and he might have been an angry nun, "If Miss Suzerain cannot answer this question, then it will be Miss Suzerain who is dead when her spell methodology turns out to be faulty."

Ellen's cheeks had puffed out then because obviously she had wanted to retort to Grabiner, but she had kept her temper, answering very civilly, "As you say, sir."

Grabiner had been asking about a particular seven circle ward, one which required a very extensive knowledge of white and blue magic, and a thorough understanding of the intricacies of laying out material magic circles and using ritual based magic. This was all Amoretta had gleaned from what little Ellen had managed to explain before Grabiner had called her down. She wasn't sure how many  _seniors_  were capable of laying a seven circle ward, and she certainly didn't know anything about complex ritual magic. Her own attempts to drawn very simple material circles had ended in such underwhelming failures that she had soon given up trying. It was all  _very_  advanced, and she understood that she still had a lot to learn before she could begin to  _dream_  of attempting something so complex.

Grabiner had called the compound ward "the Emperor's Circle." Constructed properly, It was strong enough to hold an archfiend a bay, he said.

Thinking about it carefully, she suddenly realized that the circle she had broken when she had entered into the accounting room had probably been the seven circle ward he called the Emperor's Circle. The shape of the runes laid out across the floor and walls in blazing light was burnt into her memory forever, as if it had been graven there. In the center of that circle had been Grabiner, lying weak and helpless and looking near death. Surely that meant that laying the Emperor's Circle was taxing even to him, since it was presumably the exertion of laying out the ward that had caused him to collapse in the first place. The manus could not have laid a hand on him if his spell methodology had been correct.

But she had been an interloper, a vagrant who had crossed the boundaries of shining light needlessly and heedlessly.

_He_ _'_ _s_ _trying_ _to_ _help_ _me_ _understand_ _how_ _dangerous_ _it_ _was_ _for_ _me_ _to_ _break his_ _circle_ _,_ she understood with a start.  _Rather_ _than_ _just_ _telling_ _me_ _that_ _it_ _was_ _stupid_ _to_ _do_ _it_ _,_ _he_ _'_ _s_ _trying_ _to_ _explain_ _why_ _,_ _so_ _I_ _won_ _'_ _t_ _try_ _to_ _do something so crazy_ _again_ _,_ Amoretta realized, her heart beating inexplicably faster.  _He_ _'_ _s_ _not_ _picking_ _on_ _me_ _._ _He_ _'_ _s_ _angry_ _._ _He_ _can_ _'_ _t_ _seem_ _to_ _help being angry_ _,_ _but_ _he_ _doesn_ _'_ _t_ _really_ _want_ _to_ _punish_ _me_ _._ _He_ _wants_ _me_ _to_ _understand. He wants me to understand_ _that_ _what_ _I_ _did_ _was_ _incredibly_ _dangerous._ _  
_

"I don't understand all of it yet, sir," she had admitted, humbled, "But I will learn. I'll study and I'll learn. I promise," she added sincerely.

If Grabiner was moved by her passionate devotion to her own education, he gave no indication, but Amoretta at least felt better about it.

Until he proceeded to put her on the spot twelve more times that day, on entirely unrelated subjects.

_Now_ _he_ _'_ _s_ _picking_ _on_ _me_ _,_  she thought with an inward sigh.

* * *

After class, Ellen was very cross.

"How does he expect us to know magic we haven't studied at all? We're both wildseeds, and he knows that, but we're still the best students in blue magic in the entire freshman class. Is he trying to tell us we ought to study harder?" she fumed, "Virginia said the good thing about magical school is that there aren't any grades, but I wish there were, since we seem to get demerits for even walking the wrong way down the hallway. At least if I got grades I might be able to relax a little. As it is, I'm always worried I'm about to flunk out."

Amoretta groaned, flopping her head bonelessly over on Ellen's shoulder, "Don't remind me. At first I was excited about not having grades. I mean, I know Virginia loves it, but I always feel like I can't slack off ever, because if I do, then I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do and they'll throw me out of school."

"No rest for the wicked," Ellen surmised, sighing. "Only really it's like a reverse purgatory, isn't it? Only the studious are tormented. The easy-going aren't ever punished, I mean, except when they cause trouble, like with Donald. Virginia's never worried about anything, and for that matter, neither is Donald, even though he seems to have detention every weekend."

Amoretta straightened again, nodding, because she understood what Ellen meant.

"Maybe there's some reason for it," she said, "Maybe there's some reason behind it that we don't understand yet, because we're wildseeds."

" _Everything_  seems harder for us, because we're wildseeds," Ellen said as she frowned, "I don't mean to complain, because I really do love it here," her eyes flicked sidelong for a moment, into the distance. "It's really the first place I've felt I really belonged. Discovering I was a witch was a dream come true. But everything just seems so much easier to the witchborn." She looked pensive. "I feel like they just take everything they're given for granted, and meanwhile I've been playing catch up catch up, catch up." She sighed, "I wish they'd just tell us what we're meant to do and what we're not meant to do. I hate not knowing things. It's like we're wandering around in the dark, right next to the edge of a cliff, and they keep shouting at us not to wander over the edge, and yet nobody will strike a light so we can actually see where the edge is."

Amoretta philosophically looked at the sky, "Maybe there's a reason for that, too."

Ellen sighed again, shaking her head, "You really always want to believe the best of people, don't you?"

Amoretta laughed, shrugging, "It's better than always believing the worst of them."

"I don't know," Ellen said uncertainly, "It seems to me that it's a lot more dangerous."

* * *

February was still quite young the next time Amoretta encountered Damien Ramsey. It had been a little over a week since their dramatic encounter in the hallway outside her dormitory room, and the week seemed to have done quite a bit to cool his heels.

He was waiting for her in the hallway after class one day, and neatly fell into step beside her as she escaped Professor Grabiner's clutches. Ellen cast a sidelong look at the two of them, neither fair nor foul, and seeing that Damien clearly wanted to speak to Amoretta alone, excused herself and hurried off toward Horse Hall.

Damien's eyes followed her as she went, and when she was sufficiently distant he said, "Will you walk with me? I know I don't deserve it, after the way I've treated you, but I would appreciate it if you heard me out."

Although she was happy to find that his temper had cooled, the apology inherent in his tone made her feel very guilty. He didn't have anything to be sorry for. She was the one who had done wrong, and he had every right to be angry with her.

"Of course I'll walk with you," she answered, and then was slightly startled when he took her books from her and put them under one arm.

He seemed to think nothing of the motion, as he did it absently. Before she could wonder over whether it was appropriate for her to let him carry her books for her or not, he had lightly laid his fingers on her shoulder briefly to indicate that he wanted to continue their conversation among the trees outside. She found herself swept away by his easy command of the situation, and soon she was walking at his shoulder, following him out into the cold afternoon. Her mind was busy as she walked, struggling to think of how to explain things to him so that his hurt would be as soothed as much possible without giving away the secret she shared with Grabiner. It was all very, very difficult.

He was apparently preoccupied with his own thoughts as well, since after taking her books from her he didn't say a word, simply walked beside her in silence, his brow furrowed.

When they stood in the shelter of two fir trees, quite alone, Damien spoke before she had gotten her thoughts rightly together.

"I'm sorry I was so coarse with you earlier," he apologized, his face turned away from her, as if he was ashamed of himself. "But I didn't expect - " he began, then stopped, shaking his head, "I didn't imagine - " he turned to face her suddenly and she could see the raw emotion on his face: frustration, worry, fear, despair, "I know you don't love him. I know that there's some other explanation, but I can't help feeling angry, I can't help feeling helpless. I should have been there for you. Whatever happened, I should have been the one to be there for you."

All the color drained out of Amoretta's face, and then she was flapping both of her arms as if she were a bird that wanted to fly right out of the situation.

"Wh-wha-wha-what?!" she shrieked in horror, her voice nearly hysterically shrill. Then, realizing how much she had given away by such a reaction she started laughing unnaturally, and trying her hardest to smile despite her extreme discomfort, "What are you talking about, Damien? I'm sorry I broke our date, but - "

His eyes were very intense, as deeply violet as amethysts, and she felt speared by his gaze, mesmerized, unable to look away.

_This_ _is_ _the_ _way_ _a_ _mouse_ _feels_ _before_ _a_ _snake_ _,_  she thought nonsensically.

"I know you've exchanged vows with another," he cut her off, "I don't know what you've been told," here he looked a little sad and wistful, "But you don't have to lie to me, Amoretta."

_How_ _does_ _he_ _know_ _?_ she thought wildly to herself, unaware how much the mixture of emotions that crossed her face and her obvious confusion revealed to the demon boy, whose unblinking violet eyes caught every changing mood that flitted across her face.  _I_ _haven_ _'_ _t_ _told_ _anyone_ _,_ _and_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _sure_ _Professor_ _Grabiner_ _hasn_ _'_ _t_ _told_ _anyone_ _,_ _considering_ _how_ _he_ _threatened_ _me_ _about_ _it_ _._ _That_ _leaves_ _only_ _Minnie_ _and_ _Professor_ _Potsdam_ _,_ _but_ _I_ _sincerely_ _trust_ _the_ _both_ _of_ _them_ _._ _They_ _couldn_ _'_ _t_ _have_ _-_

He was speaking again, "When I saw you that morning I felt so betrayed," Damien squeezed his eyes shut and he turned away from her, "I honestly wanted to kill whoever it was who had taken you for a wife, whoever it was who had taken you from me," this he admitted lowly, as if were ashamed of his jealousy and his own baser nature, a strange revelation from a demon whom everyone was always warning her away from. "I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to think about it because it hurt like poison to think about it, but then I found I couldn't do  _anything_ _else_  but think about it, no matter how much it hurt." He turned back to her sharply, and she found herself under his intense gaze again and nearly trembled. "And then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it didn't make any sense, that nothing made any sense. That's when I realized it must have been  _pro_ _forma_."

" _Pro_ _forma_?" Amoretta stuttered, the wheels of her mind spinning.  _He_ _'_ _s_ _not_ _bluffing_ , she realized with slow terror.  _He_ _knows_.

"A marriage of convenience," Damien explained, his voice low and husky with emotion, and she couldn't avoid his eyes, which were searching hers for some confirmation of his hopes. She ducked her head, but he continued speaking, "I don't know what happened, but I know it must have been a contract made in haste. You couldn't have kept something like that from me," at this point she felt a whisper of confidence mixed in with the frustration and worry, but the sound was light and soon lost as he raised one hand to touch her face, tilting her chin up so that she was forced to look directly into his eyes again. "It was to protect you. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me. It was something done to protect you. I should have been there," he let go of her face and looked away, covering his eyes with a hand, as if he did not want to see the tears that had gathered there, but still stood, unshed. "I should have been the one to protect you," he said, his voice so low it shook. " _I_ _'_ _m_ _sorry_."

"Damien, Damien, don't cry, I'm sorry," Amoretta found herself saying without even thinking, feeling her fingers wrap around his arm. She began to tug on his arm insistently, as if shaking him might make him feel better. She was all mixed up, and her feelings came tumbling out topsy-turvy, in no sensical order and with no concern for what it might be advisable to reveal, "It's not your fault," she insisted, her own voice rising in pitch as she neared tears herself, since she was feeling very high strung about everything. She wanted to beg the world's forgiveness for existing. "It's my fault. Everything is my fault. You didn't do anything wrong. It was what  _I_  did."

Chance more than foresight kept Professor Grabiner's name from her tongue, and soon she was hanging onto Damien's arm and crying into his shoulder while he patted her head soothingly, even though she couldn't really say what it was she was crying over. She wasn't upset over her marriage to Grabiner. Although he had been a little difficult at first, he was generally quite civil to her, which was the best she could hope for at the moment. She had never been in love with Damien either. She had thought of him as a genuine friend with the temperament of a true gentleman and a very difficult past. Perhaps she cried because she was so guilty for hurting him when he had opened his heart to her. Perhaps she cried because she was guilty that it was not Damien Ramsey that she loved, no matter how many times he declared it to her.

As her pitiful tears receded into unpleasant sniffling, she at last asked, "How did you know?"

He stepped back from her a pace so that she was standing quite on her own, rubbing at her eyes, and explained, "I can see his hand on your shoulder."

Startled, Amoretta looked first over one shoulder and then over the other, as if she feared Professor Grabiner was somehow directly behind her without her knowledge. She saw nothing, although her rapid turning did cause her hair to whip around her face almost electrically.

When Damien saw her movements, he smiled wistfully and shook his head, "Not his true hand. Not his flesh and blood hand. You might think of it as a spirit hand. His hand is on your shoulder."

At this, the flush in Amoretta's cheeks rose a little again at the thought of Professor Grabiner putting his hand on her shoulder, even briefly. If Damien noticed this display, he gave no sign of it.

Instead, he said only, "If you're ever afraid, if you're ever worried about something, about this, then please come to me."

"Damien," Amoretta said helplessly, because that was exactly how she felt at that moment, utterly helpless. Then she shook her head, and remembered her meaning, "Please don't mention a word of this to  _anyone_ , not to  _anyone_ , please? I'll get into  _serious_ _trouble_ _._ "

She did not want to imagine what Professor Grabiner would do to her if the knowledge of their marriage became public, but it would not be a nice thing, and she did not think it would involve demerits. It would probably involve expulsion.

_I_ _'ll_ _be_ _expelled_ _._ _Immediately_ _,_ she thought woefully.  _I_ _am_ _sure_ _we_ _can_ _be_ _married_ _for_ _the_ _year_ _just_ _as_ _easily_ _if_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _back_ _home_ _as_ _opposed_ _to_ _at_ _school_ _._ _Probably_ _more_ _easily_ _._ _If_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _expelled_ _,_ _they_ _might_ _strip_ _me_ _of_ _my_ _magic_ _._ _Can_ _'_ _t_ _tell_ _._ _Can_ _'_ _t_ _tell_ _._ _Can_ _'_ _t_ _tell_ _._

"I would  _never_ ," he insisted with a quiet force that caused Amoretta to forget her worries of expulsion. She looked up to find his violet eyes on fire with carefully controlled brilliance. "He may be your husband, but he cannot control your heart. As far as I'm concerned, you are not married and you never will be married until - " here he stopped short and looked away as if embarrassed by what he had revealed in his passion. After a moment he continued more soberly, "I will wait. I will wait as long as it takes. I will wait until you are released."

Amoretta bit her lip, because Damien had taken away the wrong impression of her marriage to Grabiner. Although it was certainly a  _pro_ _forma_  marriage, she was already very much in love with her horrible professor and did not wish to be released from her marriage even when the year and the day was up, although at this moment her chances of continued matrimonial bliss seemed somewhat slim. But even if the chance that Grabiner would open his heart to her was one among countless stars, she was unwilling to betray that trust for anything. She loved him, and she could not change her heart, even if it might have been much easier had she not loved him.

She could not make any false promises to Damien, not when he cared so much and so fervently. Even if her marriage was destined to collapse slowly like a flan in a cupboard, she was honestly devoted to Grabiner, and determined to prove herself to him.

"Damien," she began gently, "I don't love you, and now I know I won't ever have the chance to. I've given my word, and I mean to keep it. I want - "

He held up one hand to still her tongue.

"You don't have to love me," he said, "Not yet." Then he smiled a strange, sad, hopeful smile, "But I have faith. A year isn't so very long, but many things can happen during the course of it."

"Damien - " she worried, but he held up his hand.

"Not another word," he said. "We will keep things as they are. Don't be afraid, Amoretta. Everything will be fine."

"I love - " she began, her voice trembling with suppressed emotion.

" _Don't say it_ ," he warned her darkly, and his eyes blazed again with anger. " _Not to me._ "

"Only friends," she insisted, feeling like she was being pulled in a dozen directions at once, so her seams unraveled. "We can only be friends."

"Of course," he said, placing his hand flat against his chest and offering her a slight bow. "I would never think of dishonoring your name. I may be a devil, but I'm not a cad."

Amoretta let out a great sigh of relief and slumped, feeling as if she had gotten a heavy weight off her shoulders.

He understood. He really understood, and they could still be friends.

It was really more than she could have hoped for.

Everything was all right.

Everything would be all right.

And then, like the gentleman he was, Damien respectfully escorted her back to Horse Hall.


	4. Two: The Only War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy."
> 
> Proverb

Although being married as a first year high school student was not something Amoretta had planned when she had come to Iris Academy in September, she found that she adapted to it well enough.

_That's human nature, I suppose,_  she thought.  _We survive so well because we're adaptable. When you're faced with adversity, there are really only three options: change, move, or die._

She would change. She would change and change and keep on changing. It felt good, she thought.

It felt right, as if by changing little by little, she became more  _herself_  every day.

And there was more than enough to occupy her time and her thoughts. She had her regular studies, her independent studies, the complex and often exasperating Hieronymous Grabiner project, and her duties as student council treasurer.

There was quite a lot to do in February for the student council. February was the season when young romance budded and then blossomed, destined someday to produce succulent and perhaps  _forbidden_  fruit - or at least that was the marketing rhetoric behind the student council's February fundraiser: valentines and candy for the firm and the infirm.

Soon enough Amoretta found herself as busy as a honeybee with arrangements concerning the holiday of the patron saint of chocolate bonbons, duties that Virginia had so recently assured her no one was keen in usurping. The February fundraiser was different than the Autumn fundraiser in that it was meant to raise money directly from the students by selling them something that everyone wanted to buy: romance. The money collected in this way went to pay the tithe the school gave to the local and regional native councils for use of the land that Iris Academy was built on. As treasurer, it was Amoretta who was in charge of making all the arrangements concerning the Valentine's Day festivities, and she had as her helpmate and proctor her own reluctant husband, Hieronymous Grabiner.

It was funny to think of Grabiner as some sort of harbinger of new spring love, but the truth was that he had been serving as fundraising proctor for years, and so he had seen quite a few more Valentine's Days at Iris Academy than she had. He was an old hand at arranging what he called "the gruesome festival of adolescent hormones," and generally, she deferred to his judgement.

To Grabiner's credit, now that he had gotten vaguely accustomed to the fact that he was married to perhaps the greatest busybody of the freshman class (if that was not Minnie Cochran herself), he treated her very professionally, with none of spiteful barbs of their first few awkward classes together. In fact, he treated her so professionally that sometimes Amoretta was completely at a loss. It wasn't as if she had expected him to suddenly become a warm and tractable mate after the worst sting of their shotgun wedding receded, but she had expected at least some  _mild_  change in his behavior. As it was, Amoretta sometimes wondered if they were really married at all, or if their wedding had been a mirage of her heart, one that fled, ever distant, toward the long horizon.

But that couldn't be it, because Damien had said it:  _I_ _can_ _see_ _his_ _hand_ _on_ _your_ _shoulder_ _._

It was strange to think that it was Damien who had said the quiet words that gave her the most reassurance about her marriage, and not Grabiner, particularly since she was almost certain that it had not been Damien's intention to reassure her about the stability of her marriage.  _His hand_ , that was a tangible thing, even if it was intangible. It was solid and practical, and so responsible that she could believe it of brutally dry, standoffish Professor Grabiner, even if she could not really imagine him doing it, even in the most embroidered of her fantasies.

As Amoretta and Professor Grabiner stood together in the accounting room, and he calmly explained the purpose of the Valentine's Day festivities, romance seemed a very long way off. She could not even begin to imagine him putting a hand on her shoulder in a purely platonic way, let alone as her  _husband_.

It was after he had explained the nature of the tithing that Amoretta had at last worked up the courage to ask him about the specifics of their marriage.

He had frowned when she had asked, as she had expected, and the calm civility of their exchange had been derailed like a passenger train leaping from familiar tracks and plunging into an icy river, dooming all those aboard. At first, Grabiner had refused to illuminate the situation at all, as if he considered their marriage to be an unfortunate physical deformity of his that was best left ignored. She prevailed upon him to explain only when she reminded him that a lack of information might lead her to accidentally commit a breach of their bond, injurious to him, and quite possibly dangerous for her.

"I'm a wildseed," she reminded him, biting her lip, "So you can't expect me to have some innate cultural understanding of something I am totally unfamiliar with. Obviously marriages in the witch world are at least a little different than marriages in the mundane world, since I can't think of anyone I know who got married so they wouldn't be eaten by a demon."

Grabiner sighed, a sign of mingled frustration and aggravation, and then motioned her to sit at the table in the center of the room. If he had a responsibility to educate her on the rules of marriage, then he would clearly do so as an educator. Amoretta scrambled to her seat, as if she had been called tardy to one of his classes, and was soon struggling to flip open her notebook to a clean page. Her movements were punctuated by the click of her ballpoint pen. She was ready to learn.

Professor Grabiner rolled his eyes ceilingward even as he shook his head, crossing the space to where she sat and expertly flipped her notebook closed.

"On this one occasion, I do not suggest you take notes on my lecture," he remarked dryly. "I am not sure how you would explain them to Miss Middleton, should she chance to see them while you are studying together. Listen and think. That will have to be enough. After all," here the corner of his mouth turned up a bit grimly, "It is not as if you will face a test on this material."

_Says_ _you_ _,_  Amoretta thought rebelliously,  _I_ _'_ _m_ _being_ _tested_ _on_ _this_ _material_ _all_ _the_ _time_ _._

She kept her rebellious thoughts to herself, and soon Professor Grabiner was lecturing her on the nature of marriage just as he might have lectured her on seven circle wards.

_It_ _'_ _s_ _a_ _good_ _thing_ _the_ _door_ _is_ _locked_ _,_  Amoretta thought,  _I_ _hope_ _no_ _one_ _is_ _listening_ _at_ _the_ _keyhole_ _._

Even if Grabiner himself was the cause of their marriage becoming public, Amoretta was fairly certain that she would still be expelled and stripped of her magic.

_After_ _all_ _,_ she thought _,_ _It_ _'_ _s_ _not_ _like_ _they_ _can_ _expel_ _him_ _._

Grabiner was already speaking, and so she focused herself so she might absorb what it was that he revealed.

"First of all," he was saying, "Kavus is not a devil. The Latin word that identifies him is ' _genius,'_ although the Latin noun does not have the same derived implication of natural brilliance as the English word. Perhaps a similar word that might be more familiar to you in this context is ' _djinni_ ,' although you may as well dismiss any notions you may have of him living in an old brass urn and granting wishes. Plainly speaking, he is an intermediate spirit of zefferic fire, nominally a creature of the Otherworld called by contract into this world. He is a djinni bound in service to  _gens_  Grabiner, that is the House of Grabiner, and most specifically bound to myself. The term ' _manus_ ' means - "

Here he stopped and gestured to her with his closed grimoire, and she found herself on the spot, like a contestant on the $64,000 Question.

_Manus_ ,  _manus_ , it was Latin. She knew it was Latin, like every other unknown word that came out of Professor Grabiner's mouth, but her Latin was poor, since she had never studied it in school, electing instead to study French. French, she would have to rely on her French instead.  _Manus_ ,  _manus_ , what made sense? One of his eyebrows was raised, and the corner of his mouth was turned down, meaning that her time was running out. Her mind ran like a rabbit, tumbling over uneven and unfamiliar ground.  _Manus_.  _Manus_.  _Main_.  _Main_ _!_   _La_ _main!_  Then she suddenly remembered one scene clearly in her mind, like it was an old photograph that she had stored away. It was a plate from one of the ponderous books on dinosaurs she had loved as a child, illustrating the skeleton of a plesiosaur, with all the bones and bits neatly labeled in copperplate.

" _Hand_ ," she burst out all in one breath, leaning forward over her closed notebook from the force of her delivery. Looking up at him for confirmation, she found both of his eyebrows raised, because he had no conception of the mental acrobatics she had had to perform to come up with what he obviously considered an elementary answer. She took a deep breath, sat back, and rearranged the hair around her face, which had fallen into her eyes, before repeating, "'Manus' means hand."

He continued to watch her silently with dark eyes for a moment before nodding and agreeing, "Indeed." Turning from her, he continued with his lecture, "Of course, the word is not meant literally, but figuratively. For a wizard, a manus is a servitor bound by a contact. If you ever have cause to speak to a manus," and here he turned back and laid both palms flat on the table in front of her to accentuate his point, "Which you should  _ **not**_ ," he turned from her again, "Then I suggest that you do not refer to the manus by the word 'familiar,' as it is considered a slur. A familiar is a beast given enhanced intelligence by its master, while a manus is an intelligent being that either through choice or coercion enters into a pact of service with a witch of wizard."

Amoretta's brow wrinkled as she thought about things. "An intelligent being that - you said coercion, didn't you? Doesn't that make a manus a kind of slave?"

Grabiner's face showed no change in expression as he considered her.

"That is correct," he said. "Pact making, binding powerful spirits into service, that is one of the most ancient forms of magic that the witchborn possess. You are a wildseed girl from the mundane world, reared in privileged circumstances in one of the freest societies the world has ever known, so I do not expect you to have much frame for what I am about to tell you. Personal liberty, inalienable rights, equality, individual human value: these are all relatively recent human inventions, possible now only because of societal stability and peace in the world. In earlier times, there could be no personal liberty because the _very idea_  did not yet exist. The heart of liberalism is the concept that each individual human being has value, has rights, and that any system that degrades the value of any human, degrades the value of all humans. Once the idea of liberalism has been born, it cannot be put back in its box, and slowly spreads as different cultures come in contact with one another. Once rights become enumerated, they become very difficult to take away, which is one of the self-sustaining safeguards of society," he said. "However, it is wise to remember that the witch world changes relatively slowly, in relation to the mundane world. Because witches and wizards can live a very long time, generational gaps tend to be longer and further apart, and this encourages the valuation of tradition over innovation." He waved a hand idly at her. "I am not saying that witches are  _barbaric_ , but neither are they particularly liberal. You are fortunate enough to have been born in a place where witches  _are_  relatively liberal, which makes it easier for wildseeds to integrate into witch society."

She frowned a little. "But it seems to me, from all you said,  _you know_  that slavery is wrong, even if other witches and wizards accept it. If you do, then why do you practice it?"

"Convenience," he answered frankly, then added, "Pact making with spirits isn't something simple enough to be written off as 'slavery.' I'm not surprised you have not yet understood the nuances of the relationship between a witch and a manus, as you are still a child, determined to color the world in broad brushstrokes with a paint roller. Pacting is one of the means by which a wizard protects himself from the many hostile powers in this world and the Other. It is a means of survival, not only of tradition. Besides," he said with a shrug, "A manus who is ill-treated has ways of extricating himself from a bond that he does not find satisfactory."

Amoretta tilted her head slightly to the side, curious. "And how is that?" she wanted to know.

"The manus 'misinterprets' a command from the wizard," Grabiner said dryly, glancing sidelong out the window. "This sort of willful miscommunication often ends in the wizard's death, and even if it does not, the manus cannot be punished for it, as he has not violated his contract. He was simply doing as his master wished."

"That's very sneaky," Amoretta observed.

Grabiner shrugged again. "Yes, well," he said, "A manus is not without his own weapons. If a witch who has bound a manus dies, then the individual pact elapses, but a manus is bound to a  _gens -_  to a family line - so if someone in the family renews the pact within a certain amount of time, the manus will fall under the rule of this new contract."

"Did that manus, the one that tried to eat me," she said very awkwardly, and looked down at her closed notebook, because he had begun to frown, "Did he kill a member of your family?" she asked shyly.

"Nothing so dramatic," Grabiner said brusquely, as if he felt the need to chastise her for her sentimentality. "He formerly was the manus of my great uncle, who died of natural causes a little before Christmas. My great uncle remembered me in his will, and so the right of pacting with his manus passed to me."

"Oh," Amoretta said, because that was all she could think to say. Grabiner seemed to be very cold and matter-of-fact about the death of a family member, which was very sad, she thought. "I'm sorry for your loss," she said, because she thought that was the sort of thing you said to someone who had just lost a family member.

"Don't be," he said with another wave of his hand. "I had very few dealings with him, so it's not as if his death came as a blow, and he was so old, it was not really a surprise. Frankly, I suppose the thing that I'm most surprised about is that he even knew my name to remember me in his will in the first place. He was something of a recluse." Grabiner shrugged. "Perhaps he asked the family solicitor." Then he shook his head, "In any case, we have gotten off-topic. The manus is a servitor bound generally to a family, and more specifically to an individual person within that family."

He looked back at her as if to ascertain how much of this first lesson she had absorbed, and she nodded furiously to reassure him.

"The more powerful a manus with a lapsed contract is, the more difficult he is to control. If he is not brought under control and bound again, he is mortally dangerous to those not explicitly protected by the general family contract which binds him," suddenly Grabiner had turned his back on her again, his heavy gilt-trimmed grimoire lying forgotten on the table. "Unfortunately," he said shortly, "I found it difficult to bring the manus under control at first. For this, I am sorry. My inability led me to inconvenience you," and here the wry bitterness was obvious in his tone as he continued, "And certainly to inconvenience  _myself_  with this unwanted social contract."

"Our marriage," Amoretta prompted, because even if he considered the word forbidden, she certainly did not. She had decided to pursue things  _to the hilt._

At her prompting, he turned his head sharply to look over his shoulder at her, frowning, but she only leaned her cheek against one hand and returned his gaze levelly and patiently. At last he made a huffing sound by exhaling all at once through his nose and turned his back on her again, crossing his arms over his chest.

_He_ _'_ _s_ _sulking_ _,_ she thought.  _One_ _thing_ _my_ _marriage_ _has_ _taught_ _me_ _already_ _:_ _Professor_ _Grabiner_ _sulks_ _._

She didn't allow herself much freedom to contemplate his sulking, because she was already considering something else, something he hadn't explained.

"What I don't understand," she said, "Is why you laid out your circle and summoned the manus here in the accounting room. Wouldn't it have been safer to do it in your own chambers?"

"That was my conceit," he grunted, without turning to look at her. "This room stands over a powerful confluence of ley lines, one of the strongest and most easily accessible points of power on the entire campus. I knew it would be easier to construct my ward in this room than in my own chambers."

Amoretta chewed on the end of her ballpoint pen, considering, "But you know that all the class treasurers have keys to the accounting room. Weren't you worried that someone would come upon you while you were working and," she paused awkwardly, "Well, end up married to you?"

Suddenly she had a thought. Jacob Blaising had been her opponent in the freshman treasurer's election. If he had won instead of her, and if he had crossed the Emperor's Circle to help Hieronymous Grabiner, would Grabiner have ended up married to Jacob?

The thought was . . . very difficult. She was forced to cover her face with her hands, and she wasn't certain whether she ought to laugh or cry. Fortunately, Grabiner's back was still turned to her, so he was spared her melodramatic reaction and she was spared from his caustic commentary, at least momentarily.

"Perhaps I hoped," here Professor Grabiner's voice was dry again, with that edge of aggravation that was so familiar to her, "That any student who opened the door to see a complex ward spread across the ground and the walls would have had the sense not to cross it for any reason." He paused, as if considering whether or not he ought to continue. "The truth is," he said simply, "I do not have even that much faith in the forethought of my students, which is why I began the renewal of contract at midnight, when I was very unlikely to be disturbed. The entire ceremony should not have taken more than a half hour to complete, had things gone as they were meant."

"But I found you lying there a little after five in the morning," Amoretta said slowly, turning to look at the spot where Grabiner had lain, apparently lifeless. Then she paused and leaped to her feet as a jolt of revelation struck her, quite upsetting the chair she where had, up until this point, been sitting calmly, a model of discretion and restraint. The chair fell on its side with a crash, causing Grabiner to turn again and look at her. "You were unconscious in that circle for over five hours, sir?" she asked, both eyebrows raised and her fingertips braced against the table in front of her as she leaned over it.

"That is what mathematics would indicate," he answered sardonically, unwilling to be moved by her obvious concern for his well-being.

"Ah," she said without thinking, leaning back and folding her hands over her chest, "Then I really am glad that I broke the circle."

" _Excuse_ _me_ _,_ _Miss_ _Suze_  - " Grabiner began, incredulous, and then spat out her name again, " _Amoretta_."

He was seething. Perhaps this had not been the best moment to choose to make this revelation to him, but now it was done, and she could do nothing but make the best of it. She had said what she meant, after all. It felt good to be honest about her feelings, even if he didn't want to hear it.

"Who knows when you would have woken up if I hadn't crossed the wards," she explained with mild exasperation, throwing her hands up in the air.

"My own experience tells me that I would have woken up approximately one and a half minutes after you unknowingly blundered into the room, whether or not you had done so," he said darkly. He turned and approached her from the far side of the table, his arms crossed over his chest and his face very grim. He was  _looming_ , making good use of every inch of his adult height. He wanted to cow her, to frighten her into accepting the truth that was most convenient for his purposes.

But Amoretta would now be cowed.

It was her turn to lean over the table, both of her palms flat against it. "You don't know that," she insisted passionately.

"Clinging to the illusion of your idiotic heroism may comfort you," Grabiner shouted angrily at her, "But it does not comfort me. I would have rather laid unconscious in that circle until the stars fell from the sky rather than find myself married to an ignorant, meddlesome,  _self-righteous_  schoolgirl."

They were left staring daggers at one another, both panting from the effort of their shouting match. When he was angry, Grabiner's eyes could be as red as old rust or as black as the back of a spider. All at once, Amoretta's anger fell away entirely, and she let her eyes drop to the floor. "I'm sorry I raised my voice," she said penitently. "I'm just worried about you, sir."

"Worry about yourself," he snapped, and turned away from her, an obvious attempt to cool his own temper.

"I'd rather worry about you," she admittedly honestly.

He turned back to her suddenly, and she could see the anger and accusation burning in his eyes. "It is that attitude," he declared, jabbing a finger at her in indictment, "That I am  _certain_ will get you killed."

Amoretta gave him her smile, a little shy, but surely determined.

"Then I'm lucky to have such a responsible teacher to look out for me," she said.

Grabiner scowled at that and snatched his grimoire from the table.

"Good day," he said with ill-concealed fury, so that it sounded more like a curse than a civil farewell.

"Professor Grabiner," Amoretta fluttered her hands, but Grabiner already had the door open and was preparing to stalk away. "What about the rest of my lesson?"

After all, she really hadn't learned the first thing about witch marriages.

"We will continue it," he answered between gritted teeth, "At a later date."

And with that he left Amoretta alone in the accounting room, staring thoughtfully at the shopping list she had made for the Valentine's Day celebrations.

* * *

In the end, the Valentine's Day sales went off without a hitch, despite their argument.

_Did_ _I_ _just_ _have_ _my_ _first_ _marital_ _dispute_ _?_ Amoretta wondered to herself later as she sat alone in the accounting room, staring at the blank page of her notebook.  _If_ _I_ _did_ _,_ _then_ _it_ _wasn_ _'_ _t_ _really_ _as_ _bad_ _as_ _I_ _thought_ _it_ _would_ _be_ _._

Such a revelation was a dangerous development for Hieronymous Grabiner, so it was probably good that he really knew nothing about it.

Nothing really remarkable happened during the sale of the valentines in the school's quadrangle except for the exploits of one Kyo Katsura, who appeared to be moved more by a spirit of  _belligerence_  than by romance. He ordered twenty valentines for Minnie Cochran with such brooding hostility that Amoretta felt compelled to read over the sentiments he wished expressed after his departure, purely as a civic service.

In the end, they all seemed reasonable enough, or at least none of them were so  _unreasonable_  that she thought it necessary to bring them to the attention of an authority figure.

_I_ _'_ _ll_ _have_ _to_ _keep_ _my_ _eye_ _on_ _that_ _,_  she thought, worried.

She already knew from being in Minnie's confidence that Kyo was regularly a tyrant and a bully in their relationship. To everyone else, Minnie and Kyo appeared to be the perfect couple. She was pretty, friendly, and accomplished, and he was an athletic pretty-boy who lavished her with presents and attention. But the truth was, Kyo was obsessive and controlling, and pushed Minnie until she had fits of panic and self-doubt. The only people Minnie really shared her woes with were Amoretta and Jacob Blaising.

_Really_ _,_  she thought,  _She_ _ought_ _to_ _just_ _leave Kyo_ _on_ _the_ _side_ _of_ _the_ _road_ _._

But Minnie was consumed by guilt. Amoretta knew this because the freshman president had told her so. When they were alone, Kyo regularly told her that he couldn't live without her, that his life would be over without her by his side, that she was the only thing that gave meaning to his life, that he did everything for her -

Amoretta also knew that Minnie didn't love Kyo, because Minnie had told her this in confidence.

_It_ _'_ _s_ _a_ _bad_ _situation_ _,_  she thought.  _No_ _matter_ _how_ _hard_ _it_ _is_ _,_ _she_ _ought_ _to_ _tell_ _him_ _how_ _she_ _really_ _feels_ _._

But then Amoretta was hit by the heavy hand of her own guilt.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the unmistakable form of Damien Ramsey at Minnie Cochran's table, leaning over to chat amiably with her as she scribbled something down.

_The pot shouldn't really call the kettle black,_  she thought weakly to herself. After all, she had agreed to be Damien's girlfriend out of a mixture of guilt and pity. It was good that that had ended before things had gotten out of hand, before either of them had really been hurt by her foolishness. She had someone else to worry about now, someone whom she thought needed even more care than the friendless devil boy. She was prepared to give her full attention to the problem of Hieronymous Grabiner.

She was relieved that Damien had understood things, that he had been willing to accept her friendship, despite what she had done to him.

_Damien_ _is_ _different from Kyo_ _,_ she thought immediately, as if she had to rebelliously defend her own choices to herself.  _Damien_ _is_ _a_ _good_ _boy_ _._ _Damien_ _never_ _pushes_ _me_ _._ _We_ _'_ _re_ _good_ _friends_ _._

_Damien_ _and_ _I_ _are_ _just_ _good_ _friends_ _._

She repeated this truth to herself like a sutra even as she continued to take orders for valentines.

* * *

Quite sensibly, Amoretta did not push her luck by sending Grabiner a school valentine, friendly or otherwise. She nearly exhausted her funds sending chocolates and glad tidings to all her friends, though. She sent friendly valentines to Virginia and Ellen and Minnie Cochran, one each to the Danson brothers and the Phifer twins, two to Big Steve Kenyon (one addressed lovingly to Mr. Hoppity), and another to Petunia Potsdam. Finally, because she worried he would otherwise be unloved, she sent one to Balthasar Brundrick, mightily resisting the urge to sign it 'Virginia Danson.' Since she and Minne worked together to make all the valentines for the freshman class, she had the leisure of personalizing them fully with silly little drawings of flowers and vaguely rendered forest animals.

She did not send a valentine to Damien Ramsey. She thought about sending a friendly one, but the scene with Kyo had stayed her hand.

_I_ _don_ _'_ _t_ _want_ _him_ _to_ _get_ _the_ _wrong_ _idea_ _,_  she thought.  _That would be cruel._

Although she did not send a valentine to Damien, she did receive one, and she was relieved to find it was a friendly - if serious - valentine, rather than a romantic one.

_Please_ _depend_ _on_ _me_ _,_  it said.  _I_ _'_ _ll_ _always_ _be_ _here_ _for_ _you_ _,_ _if_ _you_ _need_ _me_ _._

Otherwise she received several valentines in return: a hilarious one from Donald Danson, that had not come with the other valentines because it included the special surprise of a dead spider, a sedate and professional-sounding valentine from Logan Phifer, and an effusively poetic one from Mr. Hoppity. She also received an unattributed bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums which she was worried at first might have come from Damien, until she saw that the hand on the small card was not his.

_I hope you're not allergic to them,_  it said.

_That's certainly too thoughtful to have come from Professor Grabiner,_  she thought with a smile. The only thing he was likely to give her for Valentine's Day was detention.

With the sunny chrysanthemums in water and a pile of her own valentines, Amoretta was gratified to see that Ellen and Virginia liked theirs so much that they both tacked them up above their beds.

Virginia was particularly pleased by the box of candy that had accompanied hers.

"I'm glad it's the good stuff!" she had cried, waving around her box of chocolates so that Amoretta worried they might spill out onto Ellen's bed, "I would have cried if you'd sent me a valentine filled with those awful chalky little pills, or something."

"I made sure," reassured Amoretta with raised hands as Virginia continued to whoop about her candies.

"What I'm wondering," broke in Ellen, pointing to a spot on her own valentine, "Is what this is right here."

"It's meant to be a groundhog," Amoretta explained sheepishly, "They're really cute; sort of like big brown guinea pigs."

"Well," Ellen said diplomatically, "It's very nice."

* * *

Although she did not send Grabiner a school valentine, she was determined to send him something.

After some thought, she placed a sprig of sage and a single pressed clover flower in his mailbox, along with an unsigned note that said only,  _You_ _are_ _a_ _good_ _man_ _._

In the language of flowers, sage stood for 'esteem,' and the clover meant, 'think of me.'

The next morning, in the dim hour before dawn, she found an envelope taped to her door.

Inside it was a sprig of sage and a pressed clover flower, and a note with only one line scrawled across it:

_I_ _do_ _not_ _require_ _your_ _validation_ _._

* * *

The lunar new year came and went, and Amoretta found herself ruminating on Angela Kirsch's prophetic dream of the cake made of sand.

She hoped the cake wasn't an omen of her marriage with Grabiner: beautiful on the outside but then doomed to collapse from within due to lack of structural support.

She had only one comfort when facing this worry: that her marriage was by no means beautiful on the outside.

She liked it well enough, but then again, she also liked groundhogs.

* * *

It was two Saturdays after she found the envelope taped to her door that Amoretta finally thought that enough time had passed that Professor Grabiner might finally be willing to continue his lessons on witch marriage. In the preceding two weeks she had been sure to acquit herself as a student beyond reproach, in hopes that his mood toward her might improve.

She still met him every morning before breakfast, and he still stubbornly refused to dine with her every time, but now he seemed less resentful of seeing her every morning and more resigned. They had passed the first flashpoint with only minor injury. By this point, he really did seem to be getting used to her.

When she caught him in the accounting room and asked him to continue his lecture, he had done so only grudgingly.

"It is a state of my life I would rather not dwell on," he had remarked crossly, "But as much as it pains me, I must admit that I have no recourse but to teach you these things. If I do not teach you, I am  _certain_ that your ignorance will somehow lead to a calamity that may well engulf the entire school." He paused, "Frankly, even if I  _do_ teach you, I am not confident that any crises will  _actually_  be averted, but even if it is tantamount to throwing a bucket of water on a raging conflagration, we all do as our consciences dictate," he finished dryly.

"We certainly do, sir," Amoretta agreed wholeheartedly, roses blooming in her cheeks.

Grabiner frowned at her enthusiasm, but began his lecture regardless.

"Generally speaking, in the witch world there are two primary forms of marriage contract, the marriage  _cum_ _manu_  and the marriage  _sine_ _manu_ ," he paused briefly, as if allowing her to take notes, but then apparently remembered that he wasn't allowing her to take notes and continued, "The simplest way to explain the differences between these two types of marriage is this: in the  _cum_ _manu_  marriage, the subordinate partner joins the family of the dominant partner, and in the  _sine_ _manu_  marriage the subordinate partner retains their affiliation with their own family." He paused again, as if thinking about what he ought to say next, then began carefully, "The marriage in question is a  _cum_ _manu_  marriage, since it was necessary for the party Amoretta Suzerain to join the family Grabiner for her protection. In this circumstance, a  _sine_ _manu_  marriage would have served no purpose."

"When you say 'subordinate,'" Amoretta began uncertainly, thinking of the vows that were sometimes taken in the mundane world, "Does that mean I'm required to obey you because we're married?"

"You ought to obey me because I am a Professor and you are a student," Grabiner answered directly, then threw up his hands, "Although you don't exactly have an impressive record on that score, so who am I to imagine you'll change your ways now?" He waved off the real essence of her question with disinterest, "No, when I say 'subordinate,' I mean only the person whose familial allegiance may change. It the witch world, marriages can easily be contracted between two individuals of the same gender, and such is commonplace, and so gender roles in witch marriages are perhaps different from those to which you are accustomed. Generally speaking, the 'dominant' member of the pair is the one who initiates the marriage action. The 'subordinate' member is the one on whom the action is initiated."

"As in,  _you_  asked  _me_  to join your family," Amoretta asked pointedly. "That was the purpose of our marriage then, for me to become a Grabiner."

Grabiner frowned, as if he did not appreciate her constant reminders of their situation.

"I thought you understood at least this much the night of the wedding," he growled, "What was that woman telling you when she had you sequestered in her room all day?"

'That woman' was obviously Headmistress Petunia Potsdam, and Grabiner's question was obviously rhetorical, but she answered it anyway, absently.

"Oh, I understood all that then, yes," she admitted, "At least in a manner of speaking. I'm just getting all of this straight in my head." She considered something, "So I really did become a Grabiner then? I really became Amoretta Grabiner?"

"You did," Professor Grabiner answered shortly. "For all intents and purposes, at the moment, you are a Grabiner. If someone wished to bind you by your true name, they would have to use 'Marianne Amoretta Grabiner' to have any measure of success."

"Then when you call me 'Miss Suzerain,' when we're in class together," Amoretta began, working it out to herself, "That's - "

" _Pro_ _forma_ _,_ " he said, and then explained, "Only for appearances. You have joined my family, and I must acknowledge such. When we are alone, I cannot call you by anything but your given name. Anything else would be inappropriate."

"Well," Amoretta suggested uncertainly, "If it would make you feel any better, you could make up a nickname for me. Sometimes my uncle calls my aunt 'Tootie.'"

Hieronymous Grabiner looked like he'd swallowed a bug, and that it was wriggling all the way down.

"I would rather not," he said and Amoretta shrugged. It was just a thought, after all.

She thought about it some more, and the corner of his mouth turned down, because he did not like it when she was thinking about things. It rarely boded well for him.

"If you're meant to call me 'Amoretta' when we're alone, does that mean I'm meant to call you - "

" _Sir_ ," he interjected sharply, as if utterly horrified by the next word that might cross her lips, "You are meant to call me 'sir.' We may be joined in a marriage contract, but I am still a professor at this academy and due your  _respect_."

"Yes, sir," Amoretta answered obediently, swinging her feet back and forth under the table. There were times to push, and then there were times to move with the rebounded energy of the push.

Some of his composure regained, Grabiner continued with his lecture, "In the witch world, those who are joined by a marriage contract almost always maintain separate quarters. It is traditional for those who marry to retain the sanctity of their private lives. In this circumstance  _in particular_  no changes of household will be affected," he warned her grimly, giving her a sharp reminder of the harsh rules he had laid down on the evening of their wedding.

Although the truth that Grabiner had revealed to her was a simple one, Amoretta found it very troubling. She had already heard from Ellen that Virginia's parents had their own separate bedrooms and workshops, but this was the first she'd heard about it being the rule as opposed to the exception. It all felt very lonely to her, to share a house but not a bed with the person that one loved. She was as devoted as a spaniel and as dependent as an epiphytic plant, so the idea of having to sleep alone even after being married was depressing to her.

She thought it sounded more like having a roommate than anything else.

Of course, as she was still a girl in school she had not expected to move into Grabiner's quarters, although the passing thought was thrilling, admittedly. Still, she had assumed that generally, in the witch world as in the mundane world, happily married people really  _lived_  with one another. In her experience, married people who kept separate bedrooms also had separate lives. They never walked together, even when they were going the same direction. It was all too clean and sterile and businesslike for her, and she thought of the thing her classmate had told her last year.

_It's only for show anyhow, so people won't talk. That and for the tax code._

"Why?" Amoretta asked bluntly, because she wanted to know.

Professor Grabiner seemed just as struck by her direct question as she had been by his startling revelation.

"What do you mean, 'why?' he asked dubiously, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Why don't married people live together in the witch world? I mean  _really_  live together," she asked, crossing her own arms over her chest.

Now that he understood her question Grabiner seemed to have found his footing, and began a lengthy explanation of the convention of married witches and wizards living separately, which he seemed to condense down to two salient points, that 'physical desires were those of a baser nature than the intellectual pursuit of magic' and that 'emotional attachments to others were an impediment to enlightenment.'

After he had finished, Amoretta delivered her own categorical verdict.

"That is stupid," she declared deliberately.

"Pardon me?" Grabiner asked, apparently taken aback. If he was, it wasn't all that surprising. This was the first time he had ever taught Amoretta Suzerain something she had utterly refused to accept.

"All those reasons you outlined that married witches and wizards don't live together, it's all stupid," she said, shaking her head, "Sure, it's fine for some people to want to be independent and live separately, if they want to do that, but only if they  _want_ to do it. It's not easier to become wise and learned if you're all alone. Being alone isn't some kind of intellectually and emotionally superior path. I think that when you force yourself to always be alone, even  _living_  becomes lot harder, because you don't have anyone to help you when you get stuck, you don't have anyone to cheer for you, or comfort you when you're hurt."

Amoretta leaned back in her chair thoughtfully, and looked out the window a the dark green of the treeline.

"Really, I think trying to keep yourself from having relationships with other people is a sign that you're afraid of them," she said. "You're afraid of being hurt, and you're afraid of hurting others. Being hurt is painful and scary, but hurting the people that you love is _even worse_ , so you cut yourself off. If you cut yourself off, you can't be hurt very badly, and you can't hurt anyone else very much either. It's safer. It's living your life in fear. You try to pretend that relationships aren't that important, that what you're  _not_  afraid of is the important thing. You pretend it with all your might because it's comforting and we all take comfort where we can." She shook her head again, and her smile was sad. "But you know," she said, "It's just whistling in the dark." She closed her eyes and ruminated a moment before turning to look at him full in the face, her gaze as sharp as a knife. "In the end, you're still alone. You can build a wall around your heart with thorns and barbed wire, but in the end, even if your house is safe, it's still empty."

Grabiner leaned over the table again, both of his hands flat on the surface.

"Perhaps you'd like to give the lecture, then," he suggested brutally, "Professor - "

"Grabiner," Amoretta reminded, then continued, "I thought that's what I was doing."

Without another word, Grabiner took up his grimoire again and headed for the door.

At the door, he said only, "Good day."

"I'll be here all week," she called after him, "If you'd like to hear the rest of my lecture series."

His only answer was to pull the door closed behind him with some violence.


	5. Three: All Thy Toils and Troubles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But in marriage do thou be wise; prefer the Person before Money, Virtue before Beauty, the Mind before the Body: Then thou hast a Wife, a Friend, a Companion, a Second Self; one that bears an equal Share with thee in all thy toils and troubles."
> 
> William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude

While Amoretta Suzerain generally considered that her marriage lessons, taught by Hieronymous Grabiner, were proceeding as well as could be expected, there were times when she worried she was a little too off-the-cuff. Professor Potsdam had told her that she would not make any headway with Grabiner if she were timid, and Amoretta was willing to dance a veritable jig on eggshells if it got here where she wanted to go, but as it was, the only emotion Amoretta was certain she had inspired in Grabiner's heart was one he was already familiar with:  _aggravation_. Still, she was willing to persevere. Professor Potsdam had told her that she couldn't expect to see results immediately, and patience was one thing Amoretta had in spades.

If there was anything she could really liken her marriage to Grabiner with, it was the grading system at Iris Academy, or rather, the lack thereof. While Virginia might have taken it as a get-out-of-work-free card, as Ellen had remarked, the lack of grades - or of any real metric of one's progress - had a tendency to make one over-careful, or perhaps even mildly paranoid. It was like that with Grabiner as well. Since he did not kindly offer her progress reports on how well she was doing at making inroads into his heart, and he was generally as stingy with affection as he was with praise, Amoretta had nothing to go by. He might have been just about ready to throw his arms around her and declare his affections passionately, or he might be nearing a breaking point, where he forcibly ejected her from his life and declared that he never wanted to see her again.

 _Even_ _if_ _he_ _did_ _that_ _,_ she thought pensively,  _I_ _'_ _d_ _just_ _wait_ _around_ _by_ _his_ _door_ _anyway_ _._

After all, patience was one thing Amoretta Suzerain had in spades.

It was a virtue that some people might have identified as stubbornness. She thought of it as the virtue of  _restraint_.

Still, as stubborn as Amoretta was, even she realized that while it was all well and good to call out, 'Steady as she goes!' it was not the safest course when one was captain of the Titanic.

But whether she was captain of the Titanic or the HMS Vanguard, that was something that remained, as yet, unclear.

Still, she carried on with her new routine as best she could. Every morning saw her at Grabiner's door to ask him to breakfast. Every morning saw her invitation refused.

This pattern of her life was by now so familiar that it had become a comfort, until one morning at the very end of February when the pattern curiously ran out, like cloth on a loom when there is no more thread to weave it.

Amoretta arrived at the appointed time, and waited as usual for Grabiner to emerge from his quarters, but unusually, he did not. Earlier in the month Amoretta might have attributed his absence to spite, an attempt to get one over on her by slipping out of his room at an unheard-of hour, but some days previous they had reached an armistice in the war over breakfast: as long as she was willing to accept that he might never agree to go to breakfast with her, he was willing to speak with her briefly each morning. It was a small victory, but it counted large in her heart. She was beginning to make a place for herself. He was beginning to recognize the place that she had. She was spinning a chrysalis. Eventually she would cease being his student and he would realize that she was something else entirely: his wife.

He could be peevish, certainly, and he was given to sulking when he did not get his way, but they had come to a peaceful agreement. He was not a capricious man. If he had given her his word that he would see her in the mornings, then he would see her in the mornings, if it was at all within his power, provided she lived up to her own end of the contract. Satisfactory ground rules having been laid, Amoretta had been behaving herself beautifully. She didn't see how he could have any  _reasonable_  complaints.

It was possible then, that Grabiner was running very late. Amoretta had never known the man to run late in her life. Even the Monday after their unfortunate wedding - before which he had spent several hours unconscious on the floor of the accounting room - he had not faltered for a single moment, nor had any hair on his dark head appeared out of place. It was one of the reasons it was so easy to conceal the fact that they were married: Grabiner gave away nothing. No matter what seemed to happen to him, he was still his own serious, bitter, unpleasant self.

 _Hell could be harrowed_ , she thought with a brief upturn of her mouth,  _And he would still scowl at his classes and hand out demerits like they were party favors._

It was possible then, that Grabiner was running late. It was possible, but unlikely. Still, Amoretta knew well enough that while blue moons are uncommon, they are certainly not impossible, and so she waited patiently by his door, her eyes thoughtfully on the dial of her wristwatch.

The hands crept slowly round and round, and still Grabiner did not appear. Amoretta counted the strips of wood in the polished wooden ceiling, and made pictures to herself by relating the variously sized stones in the floor to one another, and still Grabiner did not appear. At last, she sat down on the floor by the door and consulted her notes from the previous day's classes, because she really had nothing better to do.

In the end, the hands on the watch face crept so late into the morning that she had no choice but to abandon her vigil by his door and head to class herself. By this point, she had begun to be very worried. Hieronymous Grabiner was an accomplished wizard and very capable of taking care of himself, as he was fond of reminding her, but she also knew that very recently he had spent several hours passed out on a cold floor. The worst part of all of that had been seeing how little he cared about the fact that he had lain there for so long, unnoticed and untended.

 _Is_ _that_ _where_ _he_ _is_ _right_ _now_ _?_ she worried to herself,  _Passed_ _out_ _on_ _the_ _floor_ _somewhere_ _?_

Class with him would surely settle her fears. She would head into class, and there he would be, standing at the front of the room with his ponderous grimoire and a baleful glance and he would probably call her tardy and give her demerits, but that would be all right, because at least then she would know that everything was all right: peachy-keen, hunky-dory, better than Christmas.

But even as she entered the classroom, she realized that something was wrong. Only about half the seats in the class were filled, and several students were milling around, or sitting backwards in their chairs and chatting idly. Ellen, sitting in the front row of desks, was quietly reading a book whose title was almost Germanically long and appeared to be in Latin. Grabiner was nowhere to be seen.

When Amoretta turned to look at the blackboard at the front of the class, she saw two words written in prettily embellished capital letters: FREE PERiOD. She was familiar enough with Grabiner's handwriting to know he had not left the note on the board. The small heart that dotted the 'i' made it fairly obvious that the note had been left by Petunia Potsdam.

Amoretta sat down next to Ellen, her mind a soup of worries.

"What do you think's happened?" she asked, absently unpacking her books on the desk, although she had no need to do so. It was just something to do with her hands.

Ellen looked up from her book and shrugged. "The note was already on the board when I got here and the class was empty otherwise. Maybe he's ill, or there was a death in his family. Those are the most common reasons a teacher misses class, aren't they? I suppose that's one of the peculiarities of attending a school with so few professors. When someone gets sick, there's no one to substitute, so nothing gets taught at all," she mused.

Amoretta had stopped listening after Ellen had said, 'maybe he's sick, or there was a death in his family,' and her mind was working furiously. Whatever was wrong, it had to be serious for Grabiner to miss class. Teaching was the beginning and the end of his life.

Ellen was still speaking when Amoretta stood up abruptly, knocking one of the books off her desk, and blurted out, "I have to go to the toilet!"

She was out of the room before Ellen could say another word, leaving the other girl to curiously raise one eyebrow as she leaned down to pick up the fallen book.

"I guess she really had to go," Ellen observed absently, and then returned to reading her own heavy book.

* * *

If there was one source Amoretta felt was guaranteed to produce accurate intel on the situation surrounding her absent husband, it was the headmistress herself. After hunting through classrooms, Amoretta found Professor Potsdam teaching in the white magic classroom, in the midst of a lecture about what sort of things could be left on the windowsill to appease angry spirits. Although she did not want to interrupt Potsdam's class, Amoretta was by this point desperate for information, her own overactive imagination having now constructed an elaborate scenario in which either Grabiner himself or his entire family had died of the Black Plague.

Her anxiety led her to dance in place outside the doorway to the white magic classroom until Minnie at last noticed her and pointed her out to the headmistress.

When Petunia Potsdam approached the door, Amoretta momentarily feared being on the receiving end of more demerits for disrupting class, but fortunately the headmistress seemed pleased to see her.

"I'm glad you came by, popkin," she said, drawing the door closed behind her. "I looked for you all this morning, but I couldn't find you anywhere."

"I was waiting outside Professor Grabiner's room," the information burst out of Amoretta like water overtopping a dam.

"How dutiful!" exclaimed Professor Potsdam mildly, "You really are a nice girl. I would say you're better than Hieronymous deserves, but I happen to know he's a better man than he first appears to be."

"I know that too," Amoretta agreed distractedly, nodding so that her hair flurried around her face, "Is he all right?"

"He's fine," the headmistress reassured her. "He's suffering from fatigue, and he's a little under the weather. That idiotic man hasn't eaten breakfast for almost a month now, and I question whether he commonly eats either lunch or dinner. To put it shortly, he has indulged in a great deal of work with very little sleep and not enough to eat. It's not really surprising that he's sick."

Amoretta's stomach dropped as if she were in an elevator that was descending floors very quickly.  _He_ _'_ _s_ _sick_ _because_ _of_ _me_ _,_ she realized.  _He_ _hasn_ _'_ _t_ _been_ _eating_ _breakfast_ _because_ _of_ _me_ _._ _He_ _'_ _s_ _been_ _losing_ _sleep_ _because_ _of_ _me_ _._

She wasn't able to keep the signs of obvious guilt from her face, but what Professor Potsdam thought about it remained a mystery, for that sparkling woman had already set upon a solution to the dilemma.

"I was looking for you this morning because I thought it might be nice for you to take some food up to Hieronymous," she was saying, two fingers blissfully pressed against her cheek. "You're scheduled for blue magic today, so since he isn't teaching, you ought to have the day free. I don't really have to warn you: that man is a bear of a patient. I really think you're the best equipped to handle him. Other than me, you're the one most accustomed to weathering his explosions."

Amoretta bit her lip and sniffled, "Professor Potsdam, I think I may be the reason he's sick," she confessed.

The headmistress was not concerned by this admission at all, merely waving one of her hands lightly, "Well if you are, then good. It's about time that man was was sick on something other than his own self-loathing."

Having said what she meant to say, Petunia Potsdam was unwilling to listen to any of Amoretta's guilty confessions, and simply outlined briefly where Amoretta might pick up Grabiner's breakfast and how to go about entering his quarters.

This last piece of information was an exciting bit of personal espionage that might have left her heart racing, had she not been so glum.

The headmistress left her with one parting bit of advice before returning to her class.

"If you think you've done something to wrong Hieronymous, then tell him so," she advised. "It won't do any good for you to apologize to me."

* * *

It was with some trepidation that Amoretta went first to the head cook to retrieve something suitable for Professor Grabiner to eat, and then up the stairs and down the hallway to his rooms. Never before had the walk from the basement kitchens to Grabiner's quarters seemed so long as it did when Amoretta went carrying a tray laden with broth, toast, and orange juice and thinking thoughtfully about how she ought to go about apologizing to him. It was as if every time she took a step toward his quarters, she only covered half the remaining distance. She was caught fast in the event horizon of her own embarrassed guilt, doomed to wander in limbo forever, never quite  _here_ , and never quite  _there_.

It seemed as if she would never find herself before his door again, but of course she did, because the walk from the kitchens to the second floor hallway could be made in a couple of minutes, no matter one's level of preoccupation.

At the door to his rooms she was obliged to put the tray on the ground so she could trace out a simple sequence of symbols on the wood of the door with her index finger. The symbols traced, she heard the pins in the lock turn and then gingerly opened the door wide enough to get her foot through it.

"Sir, I'm coming in with your breakfast," she called, sounding braver than she really felt. With her intentions made plain, she could no longer retreat, and was forced to pick up the tray of breakfast and boldly enter the dragon's den.

The first thing she noticed about Grabiner's quarters was not Grabiner himself, who lay convalescing in his bed, propped up by pillows. The first thing Amoretta Suzerain noticed about Grabiner's quarters were  _the_ _books_.

Considering the sheer number of them, it was understandable that they were the first thing she took notice of, no matter what her feelings might have been concerning her own afflicted professor. Every wall of the room was lined with narrow wooden shelves from the stone floor to the tiled ceiling, and every shelf was piled with books of all sizes: ancient and decrepit looking books, illuminated manuscripts that appeared to be worthy of being in museum collections, trade paperbacks so obviously modern they must have come from the sort of bookstore one finds in a shopping mall, worn books, beloved books, moth-eaten and worm-chewed books, books with their bindings fallen to pieces that had been taped back together industriously - The shelves literally sagged under the multitude of them, bowing down in the middle like tired horses, and their number was too great to even be contained by the shelves, as numerous and densely packed as they were. In every corner of the room there were stacks of books that rose nearly to her waist. There was a wardrobe against the wall, and shelves had been carefully built around it. The one window was curtained heavily so only dim light penetrated the room despite the fact that it was mid-morning, and shelves had been carefully built around it as well.

The room had high ceilings, and the shelves braced up against the tiles as if they were the pillars that held up the sky. The piled and shelved books reached so far into the heavens that she did not think Grabiner could have accessed them easily, despite his considerable height, if he did not make use of the short step-ladder that leaned in one corner of this bookman's paradise.

With the exception of the bookshelves, the furniture in the room was somewhat sparse and spartan.

There were two small end tables on either side of the bed, and they were also piled high with books. Several were scattered across the top of the desk that stood near the middle of the room, some open and piled on top of one another, other closed, their places marked by ribbons and feathers and stray snatches of paper. There was a chest at the foot of the four-poster bed, and there were more books piled up on top of it. Standing a bit out from the wall was a Morris chair and a lamp - apparently a favored relaxation spot. There was a marked book in the seat of the chair, and two others laid on the ground nearby.

To say that Grabiner's private collection of books was more impressive than the library's own was a ludicrous understatement. One would have more properly called this room a library - or otherwise  _the stacks_  - than the pitifully bland and spare room that the students had access to.

 _This_ _is_ _his_ _life_ _,_  she thought, and a flush crept into her cheeks that drove away her earlier guilt and uncertainty.  _This_ _is_ _where_ _he really_ _lives_ _._

It was a house built of books, and although he had not invited her into it, she felt at home, just the same.

She took a slow, deep breath. The room smelled like  _literacy_.

This was a place she could belong.

Amoretta kicked the door closed behind her with her foot, and then turned to smile at him, her heart calmed.

"I've brought your breakfast," she volunteered.

"That I can see," he answered dryly, but she thought he sounded very tired.

She looked around herself for some place where he might eat his breakfast, but found no suitable candidates. All surfaces were covered in books, apart from the bed. She thought briefly that he might have used the surface of the bed to store books as well, if it hadn't been absolutely necessary that he sleep on it.

"Well, it's broth," she began, unsure, "So it's probably best if you don't eat it lying in bed - "

"You can clear off the desk," he said deliberately, "Just stack the books neatly in the floor."

She nodded, gratified to have been trusted with such a task, and carefully sat the tray down on the floor.

She took note of the titles of the books he was currently reading or consulting as she carefully stacked them up, and noted that while two of them apparently had something to do with marriage law and custom, none of the books were fortunately titled anything like  _How_ _to_ _Deal_ _with_ _An_ _Upsetting_ _Wife_  or  _Ten_ _Steps_ _to_ _a_ _Quick_ _and_ _Painless_ _Divorce_. All of them were interesting, however, and two of the titles on the desk were in Latin.

As she picked up the tray to set it neatly on top of the desk, she asked a question that had been on her mind for several days.

"Sir, I was wondering, I mean, I know it's a lot to ask on top of everything else you do for me, but do you think you might teach me a little Latin?" she asked the question shyly, ducking her head because her ignorance embarrassed her. Being a wildseed was no excuse for not being able to read Latin, as it was not an arcane language. "The more I think about it, the more it seems obvious that being able to read Latin is necessary to understand the witch world."

"It is not," he answered definitively, his voice low and tired, but his intention clear. "Being able to read Latin gives one some insight into European witch culture and history," he admitted, "But it is by no means requisite knowledge, even for an accomplished wizard, and particularly not for an American-born wildseed witch. It is not a shortcut to tomes of secret knowledge, if that is what you are hoping for," Grabiner remarked dryly. "The pursuit of knowledge requires dedication, tenacity, and above all else  _insight_. If you were a truly devoted student, a student actually  _prepared_  to learn, you wouldn't ask me to teach you Latin, like it was the miracle panacea to your readily apparent ignorance. It seems that before teaching you anything, I must first teach you what you are  _asking_. You need to be made to understand the complexity of the request you're making. Latin alone will not cure your ignorance. Schoolboys scribble Latin graffiti on bathroom walls, and write offensive limericks about unpopular school masters. If you really wished to  _understand_  things, you would have to learn medieval Latin, Greek, Coptic, Aramaic, Old Hebrew, Phoenician, the Beth-Luis-Nin, the Elder and Younger Futhark. You would have to learn the clerical, the scholarly, and the vulgar. You would have to learn the bones of language itself:  _grammar_. Grammar is the key that unlocks the door to knowledge, because grammar is the pattern of the universe - "

"Professor Grabiner," Amoretta interrupted, raising both of her hands, as if she wished to ward off a lecture, particularly when he was obviously tired, "It seems like I don't really know what I want to learn," she admitted, then she paused and took a deep breath. "It is very clear to me that I don't really know much about the world. I don't understand it very well, and don't tell me that it'll come with time because I don't want to hear it." She frowned, and then used the word he had so recently leveled at her. " _I_ _feel_ _ignorant_. I know I'm a wildseed, but that's not really it. Up until I came to Iris Academy, I really thought that I had had a decent education. I went to a good elementary school, I guess, and then I went away to boarding school, and I've always loved reading for as long as I can remember, but all I can think every day in class is that there's so much I just don't understand. Not just about magic, but about the world in general. Sure, I can name the all the capitals of the largest nations in Europe, but those are mostly just names on a map to me. They don't really mean anything. I can speak and read French a little, but even I recognize that I do it pretty badly. I suppose what I've finally come to realize is that the world is a very big place, and that I am a very small person," she finished helplessly, flushed. She had said much more than she had intended to say, delivering a breakfast of soup and being a good helpmate. She lowered her eyes and studied the ground, at her feet and the books she had stacked so carefully.

"What makes you think," Grabiner began lowly, "That I'm the one who ought to teach you all these things?"

 _Why_ _do_ _I_ _want_ _him_ _to_ _teach_ _me_ _?_  she wondered to herself.  _No matter what I may think of him as a person, there's no denying that he's a_ _tyrant_ _and_ _a_ _brutal_ _taskmaster_ _in_ _the_ _classroom_ _._ _If_ _I_ _wanted_ _to_ _learn_ _,_ _I_ _could_ _ask_ _Professor_ _Potsdam_ _._ _She_ _'_ _s_ _definitely_ _a_ _spoonful_ _of_ _sugar_ _to_ _make_ _the_ _medicine_ _go_ _down_ _._

When she spoke, it was almost without thinking, or rather she  _was_  thinking: she was thinking out loud, "You really know quite a lot. It's always surprising to me, how much you know and about how many things. But it's more than what you know, it's that I trust you. I know that you always have my best interests at heart. Even when you're rough, it's for a reason. You're always considering what's best for me. If you're hard on me, I know it's only because you're worried about me. I may not always agree with you, but I do always respect what you have to say. Really, you're the best teacher I've ever had."

Grabiner was silent for some minutes, and Amoretta was sure that it was because he was preparing a suitably sardonic comment, but when he spoke, his voice was very quiet.

"If I undertake to teach you privately," he said, "I hope you understand that I will be much more demanding of you than I am in the public classroom. The headmistress keeps me from being as strict as I would be at my own discretion."

Amoretta's heart leapt.

"Do you mean you'll really teach me?" she asked, for it was as if a June garden had bloomed around her, there in the dim room surrounded by books of every leaf.

"I will take you on as a student provisionally," he said, and then continued with what he clearly imagined was a stern warning, "But, if I am ever given any reason to believe that you are not applying yourself earnestly, then I will terminate our lessons immediately. I refuse to waste my time on someone who lacks focus."

"Yes, sir," she stammered happily, because he could have told her that she would be made to walk a tightrope over a pit of spikes and she would still have been delighted at the news.

"And as I am sacrificing my own time to this venture I expect you to behave with decorum, not with your usual cheeky disregard for authority," he continued severely, although it was clear that he was at least a little pleased by her reaction.

" _Yes,_ _sir_ _,_ _yes,_ _sir_ _,_ " she repeated happily, clapping her hands in delight. All at once she leaned over the desk and rapped her knuckles against the hardwood of its back, sending ripples through the bowl of steaming broth and the glass of orange juice.

"Amoretta," Grabiner asked dubiously from where he sat propped up in bed, "What are you doing?"

"Wishing myself luck," she admitted, "It's not like I think having you teach me things is going to be  _easy_."

"It will not be," Grabiner agreed seriously, and then swung his body around in bed so that his feet touched the floor.

When Amoretta saw that they were bare, she called out, "Wait, wait!" and was soon scrambling around until she turned up his slippers, which she brought to the edge of the bed.

"Next you'll be fetching my pipe," Grabiner remarked dryly, but his familiar sardonic humor was comforting this time, instead of being off-putting. It was familiar. In some ways, it was Grabiner himself.

After having fetched his slippers, Amoretta had the luxury of studying Grabiner - and Grabiner's pajamas - at close range.

"Are they tweed?" she asked, dumbfounded. The pajamas were a pale brown, something close to the color of oatmeal.

"What?" he asked, as he shuffled off toward his desk where his breakfast awaited. Looking back at her, it immediately became clear that she meant his pajamas and he frowned. "Are you an imbecile? Who in their right mind would sleep in tweed pajamas?" He paused, then warned, "If you answer that, I will  _certainly_  give you demerits."

It was probably a joke,  _probably_ , which meant that he was now in such a mood that he was willing to tease her.

"Yes, sir!" she answered smartly, with a salute, and he sighed as he sat down to eat his breakfast.

As he ate, Amoretta fidgeted.

At last, she began awkwardly, "Professor Grabiner, sir, I just want you to know how much I appreciate everything you've done for me, and everything you continue to do for me all the time."

"You have already made that clear," Grabiner answered shortly, as if he preferred to concentrate on his breakfast rather than her uncertain declarations.

Amoretta doggedly continued on, her ears turning pink. "I know that I must be really awfully frustrating to deal with a lot of the time, and I know that I wouldn't have been the one you picked to spend time with, if you'd had your way."

"I would not have picked anyone," Grabiner agreed equally shortly, continuing his morning repast without interruption.

"What I mean to say is, I'm really sorry for all the trouble I've caused you. I never mean to cause trouble, but I seem to do it, all the same. I know that's no excuse, and I don't mean it to be, but I just want you to know that I  _am_  sorry," she finished, all in one breath.

It seemed at first that Grabiner wasn't going to answer this last confession at all, but when he did it was with the benevolence that only comes from a full stomach.

"It is not really as bad," Grabiner said simply, "As it could be."

* * *

The next morning, Amoretta waited anxiously by his door at the appointed time, and she was much relieved when he appeared, looking considerably better for having spent the day abed.

"Good morning, sir," she greeted him, smiling.

"Good morning," Professor Grabiner answered in return, and then paused, as if waiting.

Then Amoretta nodded once and said, "I'll see you in class, sir."

"Miss Suzerain," he called after her, and she turned to look over her shoulder at him. "You're not going to ask me to breakfast?" he asked.

Amoretta shook her head.

"No sir," she said, "I'm not."

And then she was gone and Hieronymous Grabiner was left wondering.

* * *

Their first lesson in the grammar of the universe happened on the evening of the pancake supper. The pancake supper was a courting ritual which, Minne had informed her, Amoretta wasn't allowed to attend anyway, on account of being married.

 _It's not like I needed a special sign to open the courting season,_  Amoretta thought bemusedly as she sat with an open book in her lap.  _I've opened it myself, and I'll keep opening it over and over again, as many times as I need to._

She was sitting at a table in the library - the library on the first floor that was open to all students, as opposed to the strictly verboten library he kept in his bedroom - with Grabiner, who had come bringing several dog-eared books from his private collection.

He had little time for niceties, and did not even bother to answer her when she asked him how his evening was passing. He simply pointed at an empty table and directed her to sit.

She sat, scrambling to open her notebook to a blank page. He sat down beside her a little more decorously, sweeping his cape behind him so it fell quite elegantly over the back of his chair and arranging his books around himself. Once he was satisfied that she had gotten her things in order and was ready to give him her undivided attention, he opened one of the books he had brought and began to speak using his lecturing voice, just as if they had been in a classroom together.

Here though, Amoretta was his only student.

"First," he said with a brush of his fingertips across the book in front of him, "Let us consider, in a very general way, why it is that grammar is so important to a witch. What makes a witch distinct from the rest of humanity is her ability to control and direct mana through the conduit of her body, and the way in which witches give this raw essence tangible form is, almost without exception, through the use of spells." He paused, and then eyed her very critically. "Please identify and explain the component parts of a spell," he prompted.

Amoretta nodded, a little nervous at being put on the spot, but anxious to please him.

"Well," she said, "All spells start with the invocation of a rune circle - which both identifies the style of magic that the spell belongs to, as well as declares the paradigm of the spell," she hastened to add.

Grabiner nodded, satisfied so far. "Go on," he said.

"And then there are two major components of the spell itself," she saw Grabiner's mouth turn down at the corner and she corrected herself, "There are three components, although two of them are pretty similar."

"Similar as those two elements of a spell may be, it is the difference  _between them_  which underpins all of modern spellcasting," he said grimly, then shook his head briefly, "But we will get to that in time. Until then, please continue."

Amoretta continued. "There are two verbal parts of a spell, and then a gestural part, called the somatic element. The somatic element primarily functions as a focus, to keep the witch's concentration from breaking as she draws out the mana and holds it in preparation of firing the spell. The two verbal parts of the spell are the incantation - the long part of the spell which is counted in verses, and the catalyst name, the short part of the spell that comes at the very end, and is used as the spell's trigger."

Having finished her explanation, she looked toward him for another confirmation.

"Give me a practical example," he said, watching her thoughtfully.

"Well," she said as she thought about it, "Light is the first spell I learned, so I suppose I'll use that. This is the somatic part," she traced out a simple circle with one finger, then crossed into it like she was making a 'Q' and flicked her finger out at the end, as if dotting an 'i.' As she went through the motions, her fingertips glowed faintly and left the afterimage of a trail of fading light, like an echo of her hand's movements. She continued speaking as she traced out the movement. "It's got a one verse incantation that goes like this:  _Trembling glimmer, color the universe. Light!_ " she finished, and the small blue witchlight flared above her open palm. "'Light' is the catalyst name, the trigger of the spell."

Grabiner gave one brief nod of his head as he dispelled her witchlight with a few words of his own.

"That is a satisfactory explanation, Miss - " he broke off, because they were quite alone in the library. Everyone who might possibly have overheard them was instead enjoying an evening full of sound and laughter and pancakes. "Amoretta," he finished a bit awkwardly, then shook his head, as if to clear it. "As students of grammar and as witchborn, the two elements of the spell that interest us the most are the incantation and the catalyst name. What is an incantation?" he asked.

Amoretta bit her lip. Grabiner's question was difficult because it was so abstract. They hadn't studied such esoteric topics yet in class, and she really didn't find that too surprising, because it seemed to be a very advanced and complex concept. They spent most of their time in freshman classes learning incantations, not thinking about what incantations actually were. She did not have a pat answer for him, so she thought about it carefully, based on the incantations she knew herself.

"Well, it's sort of a longhand description of a spell," she began, tilting her head to the side as she thought. "And then again, it's like poetry. It is counted in verses, after all. I guess it's something like the meaning of a spell, like, if you were trying to explain a spell to someone, the truest way to do it would be with the incantation."

"But incantations are often difficult to understand," Grabiner was ready with a contention. He cast a dry, frustrated look at the rack of magazines nearby. "One complaint of freshman, year after year, wildseed and witch-reared alike, is always about incantations. 'Why do we have to learn these?' and 'These things don't make any sense,' they whine and wail like tortured cats. Of course, I answer as I always do, 'You don't have to learn them. They're strictly optional, just as your continued existence as a student at this school is strictly optional.'"

Amoretta giggled into the back of her hand.

Grabiner looked grim.

"Do you find something funny, Miss Suzerain?" he demanded.

"Your impression of the freshman class," she admitted with a smile. "Anyway, complaining about incantations is silly. You've got to learn them, otherwise you can't cast a spell, because you won't understand it at all. You won't understand what it does, or how to control it."

Grabiner nodded once, and then sat considering her.

"Very advanced students can often cast their so-called 'sweet spells' without actually reciting the whole incantation," he said. "Some of them can cast their sweet spells without the incantation at all, relying entirely on the catalyst words to trigger the spell."

"But that doesn't mean that they haven't learned the incantation," Amoretta disagreed, shaking her head. "It means it they've learned the incantation so well, and understood it so perfectly, that they can imprint it on the spell with just their will."

"Very good," he said with a nod. "It is at least a little comforting to know that you have not been tempted by the specter of 'something for nothing.' If you had labored under this delusion, this would have been our first and last tutoring session."

"Well, I'm glad I answered the question right," she said with a rueful smile, but he was still all business.

"Now, as you have correctly identified, the incantation is the  _meaning_  of a spell," he said. "However abstruse it may seem at first, the words of the incantation explain the purpose and nature of the spell. They properly identify it. Anyone who has learned an incantation and its catalyst words may cast a spell, so long as they have the flow capacity to do so, and provided no other unforeseen mishaps occur, the spell will succeed." He closed his eyes briefly before opening them again and gesturing to the spine of his grimoire, which lay on the table next to his hand. "But memorizing an incantation is not enough. It is the barest minimum required to cast a spell. For instance. Let's say that you and I are standing at opposite ends of a hallway and that we elected to cast the spell 'Fireball' at one another - "

"That sounds dangerous," she broke in, looking worried. "I think we'd hurt one another, and we'd probably end up blowing up the hallway too."

Grabiner looked very put-upon. "We're not actually doing it. If we were, I agree that it would be dangerous, and I would not suggest it. Certainly someone as unpracticed as  _you_   _are_  ought not be throwing around fireballs. This is an intellectual exercise."

"But," she was still troubled, "Can't we pick a less violent spell for our intellectual exercise?"

Grabiner frowned. "I suppose so," he said. "I had elected to use evocation for this exercise since varying degrees of effect in evocation are very clear and easy to explain, but if it bothers you so much, we will use a different example. Let us suppose that we are both standing in a hallway together, and we elect to cast the spell 'Teleportation' at the same time. Is this more acceptable to you?" he wanted to know.

Amoretta nodded.

Satisfied, Grabiner continued his example. "You know the incantation to this spell, as do I. We both cast the spell under the same conditions. What happens?" he asked.

"Well," Amoretta said uncertainly. "We both teleport to another location successfully." She thought about it. "Only you can probably get multiple jumps out of one spell. The big reference book in the blue magic classroom has some things to say about that."

Grabiner nodded. "That is correct. I have a deeper understanding of the incantation of 'Teleportation' than you do, which means I can use one casting of it to jump multiple times. This is called a multi-vectored teleport, because it has multiple travel vectors. Obviously this gives me a considerable advantage over you if we are engaged in a competition or in an outright fight."

Amoretta frowned again. "I don't want to be in a fight with you," she said, clearly distressed.

"Well, it's good to know you're not  _actually_  suicidal," Grabiner remarked sardonically. He shook his head. "Even if you do not want to engage in a hostile confrontation, sometimes the choice is not yours to make and you will find yourself in a fight regardless.," he said. "Sometimes one's understanding of an incantation can mean the difference between life and death." He gave her another grim look. "You are unlikely to encounter many such situations while in school, however. Here your knowledge of incantations will stand between you and a failing grade."

He tapped the open book with his index finger. "Which, of course, brings us back to grammar. Incantations are sentences. Sentences are grammatical constructions. What is required to truly understand magic is a thorough grasp of grammar and of lexicon. We will begin with grammar, because that seems to be the element most sorely lacking in your education. We will begin with English grammar because that is the language in which you claim to have the most proficiency." The way he delivered the last bit, with one raised eyebrow, made it very clear that he thought her claim was dubious at best.

Amoretta flushed, embarrassed. "Do you really think my grammar is that bad?" she wanted to know.

Grabiner stared at her for a moment expressionlessly, then he said. "The cat lies under the table, sleeping."

Amoretta looked at him blankly, and wondered if her sheer stupidity had driven him a little mad.

He frowned. "Parse it," he prompted.

Amoretta flushed again, and began stuttering out an answer.

"'The' is an article," she started, "'Cat' is a singular noun, the subject. 'Lies' - " her mind froze up, because Grabiner was watching her very seriously. "'Lies' is - " he looked as if he were about to break in, but she shut her eyes tightly and blurted out, "'Lies' is an intransitive verb, third person singular, simple present tense. 'Under the table' is an adverbial prepositional phrase that modifies 'lies.' 'Under' is the preposition, 'the' an article, and 'table' is a noun, and the object of the phrase. 'Sleeping' is present participle, part of a verbal clause."

At the end of her recitation she was panting.

At first he said nothing.

Then, he said very simply, "That is correct."

Amoretta's smile blossomed like a flower in the sun, but he wasn't finished speaking.

"Please consider how challenging it was for you to parse that sentence, which was simple and straightforward." His gaze was still impassive. "Imagine if I actually set you to a difficult one."

Amoretta's cheeks darkened again, and she ducked her head, feeling very ignorant.

"Nevertheless," he said. "You did better than I estimated. It was a good showing." When he saw her face was still down-turned, her eyes on the grain of the wood in the tabletop, he snapped his fingers sharply and she looked up, startled. "Do not feel shame at your ignorance, girl," was what he said. "We all begin in ignorance, and there is nothing shameful in that. It would only be shameful if you recognized your ignorance and yet wished to  _stay there_. Are you not here to learn?"

"Yes?" Amoretta asked with a sniffle.

"You are," Grabiner agreed. "If you already knew all it was that I had to teach you, then this exercise would be a waste of time. You are a student," he said shortly. "Your entire purpose is to study and to learn. Don't feel the need to apologize because you didn't come to school with the whole of human knowledge already crammed into your little brain." He sighed and seemed tired. "That is the hubris of youth," he said, then shook his head again briefly, turning his eyes toward her again. "You will grow and you will learn. That takes time and effort, and I am here to help guide you along the way."

Amoretta sniffled again, but this time it was the sniffle of determination.

"Yes, sir," she answered smartly, and she might have saluted if they hadn't been sitting together at a table. "I'll do my best," she declared.

"You'd  _better_ ," was his ominous warning, and then he turned a leaf in the book before him, and began lecturing her on nouns and their declensions.

* * *

And so Amoretta had located another new beat in the rhythm of her life. She woke up every day to wish her unwilling husband a good morning, but she no longer asked him to breakfast. She read quite a lot. She studied quite a lot. She played sports in the sports club with a great deal of enthusiasm but a catastrophic lack of talent, and when he had time to spare, she went to extra lessons taught by Hieronymous Grabiner.

And of course, every Saturday morning she got up very early to sort the mail and deliver the week's allowances to the freshman class. Such was the rhythm of her life.

On one such morning in early March, Amoretta was busy with her duties, humming to herself as she alphabetized letters for easier sorting, when there was a knock at the door.

Such a thing was unusual, but not unheard of, and so Amoretta left her piles of letters and went to the door to unlock it.

When she answered the door she found herself face to face with a girl only a few inches taller than she was, a girl with jet black hair, an upturned nose, and a number of pale freckles across her cheeks.

Perhaps most startling thing of all was although the girl wore what Amoretta would have certainly described as a uniform, it was not the uniform of Iris Academy. This was a stranger to the campus: not a student, and obviously not a parent. This was clearly an interloper.

Amoretta blinked at her, uncertain of what she ought to do in such a situation. The campus had all sorts of wards around it, and she knew that there were spells laid into the ground so that mundane people avoided it naturally, unless they were expressly invited. This girl was not a common trespasser, and most certainly magical. She didn't  _look_  mundane at any rate, but instead favored the unusual and somewhat flamboyant style of dress that Amoretta had learned was considered unremarkable by witches and wizards.

The girl, who could not have been more than twenty, wore a jaunty red beret slightly askew on her dark head. She placed one hand over her heart as she bowed her head slightly to Amoretta, the feather in her cap nodding as she did so.

"I have a package and a letter for the wife of Hieronymous Grabiner," she said, "The headmistress indicated that I might leave them here and that they would be delivered to her."

At this announcement, Amoretta's eyes had widened and she had immediately rushed over to the door and stuck her head out, looking both ways down the hallway. She was much relieved to find it empty. It was, after all, very early.

She pulled the door closed behind her and turned to regard the messenger before her. The girl wore a uniform of deep red with shining brass buttons. If Amoretta didn't know better she would have sworn this girl was in a marching band, or was perhaps an elevator attendant.

"Are you a mail carrier?" Amoretta asked curiously. She had never met a magical mail carrier before. Although she was in charge of sorting at least part of the mail that came to the academy, it suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea how it actually got to the school, whether by magical means or mundane.

"Wildseed?" the messenger girl asked curiously, a smile quirking at the edge of her mouth.

Amoretta nodded, and the letter-carrying girl dropped an easy curtsy, pulling her pleated skirt wide daintily. "I am a courier. Are you in charge of the mail here?"

Amoretta nodded again and then hastened to add, "For the freshman class, and oh, I ought to tell you, I'm Hieronymous Grabiner's wife, although the information isn't meant to be public."

Although Amoretta had been sworn to secrecy with regard to the students at school, she didn't see how she could help admitting her identity to a courier who had a letter and a package for her. Professor Potsdam clearly hadn't thought the situation particularly dangerous because instead of accepting the package herself, for discreet delivery to Amoretta, she'd sent the girl to the accounting room, where the courier was likely to encounter Amoretta herself.

At this revelation, the courier speedily swept the beret from her head and held it over her heart.

"I beg pardon, my Lady," she said, and hurriedly gave over the letter and the package, which was a little smaller than a shoebox, done up in brown paper figured all over with unusual symbols.

"Ah," Amoretta cried in mild distress as she accepted the package, "Thank you, but you really needn't do that. I'm not really anyone special." It was on the tip of her tongue to explain that she was a first year student at the academy, but then she realized that this might cause more problems than it solved.

The courier grinned cheekily as she answered, "If you are the wife of Hieronymous Grabiner, then you are Baroness Halifax, my Lady, although I imagine no one has seen fit to inform you of this."

Amoretta was glad that the chair was close by, because she sat down in it hard upon receiving this revelation.

"Are you sure of that?" she stammered out, and the courier nodded smartly.

"As sure as the stars in the sky, my Lady. I am a courier in the service of the Viscount Montague, your father-in-law, so you might say I am intimately acquainted with the situation," she assured, then snapped her heels together sharply with a click and made a brief bow, "The Viscount Montague asked me to wish you the most hearty of congratulations, and with that done, I must beg your leave. I would rather not meet Lord Halifax. He is not particularly fond of me." She wrinkled her pert, freckle-spattered nose. "Besides, I have quite a few other messages to deliver. The Viscount is anxious for everyone to celebrate his son's marriage."

Amoretta's eyes had dropped to study the heavy stock of the envelope that was so neatly addressed to 'The Rt Hon Lady Halifax' but she looked up, deeply startled, as the meaning of the courier's final statement washed over her. Unfortunately, when she looked up, ready to demand an explanation, she found herself quite alone in the accounting room, as if the courier had simply vanished into thin air.

Amoretta sighed.

 _The_ _world_ _is_ _much_ _more_ _complicated_ _than_ _I_ _imagined_ _,_ _and_ _being_ _Professor_ _Grabiner_ _'_ _s_ _wife_ _apparently involves_ _more_ _than_ _just_ _fetching_ _his_ _slippers_ _and_ _asking_ _him_ _to_ _breakfast_ _,_  she thought.

The whole situation in itself was trying, even without having to be Baroness Halifax besides.

Of course, it was all well and good to have hats doffed to her, but she suspected that being Baroness Halifax was not really about wearing fancy dresses and being adored like a glass-slippered princess. And after all, she hadn't done anything at all to earn such an impressive distinction, only married her professor which did not, she thought, merit fancy titles and hats being swept off in her presence.

 _I_ _imagine_ _there_ _'_ _s_ _a_ _reason_ _that_ _no_ _one_ _has_ _told_ _me_ _about_ _this_ _,_  she mused to herself, turning the envelope over in her hands.  _Perhaps_ _I_ _ought_ _not_ _open_ _it_ _._ _The_ _courier_ _was_ _anxious_ _to_ _avoid_ _him_ _._

Then Amoretta remembered Petunia Potsdam's advice about eggshells and slit the heavy envelope open without any further qualms.

The letter inside the envelope she found most interesting.

 _I_ _should_ _like_ _to_ _meet_ _Aloysius_ _Grabiner_ _at_ _some_ _point_ _,_  she thought to herself.

She was rereading the letter for the third time, with the inlaid wooden box that had been in the package unwrapped and sitting at her elbow, when Lord Halifax himself appeared.

"I must imagine that all of the freshman class's mail has already been delivered, to see you sitting around so idly this early in the morning," Grabiner remarked with his characteristic humor.

Amoretta waved him off with one hand idly, "I'm about to go deliver it. I still have plenty of time, Professor Grabiner. By the way, your father sent me a present."

She did not have to turn her head to know that Grabiner was swiftly shutting and locking the door behind him.

 _It_ _'_ _s_ _a_ _good_ _thing_ _no_ _one_ _else_ _ever_ _wants_ _to_ _use_ _this_ _room_ _,_ she thought, vaguely amused.  _Professor_ _Grabiner_ _always_ _seems_ _to_ _be_ _locking_ _us_ _in_ _here_ _to_ _yell_ _at_ _me_ _for_ _one_ _thing_ _or_ _another_ _._

To his credit, Grabiner did not yell, he merely snatched up the inlaid box and held out his hand for the letter, frowning.

She frowned back, "Look, sir, I am perfectly all right with you confiscating that box, since it obviously belongs to the Grabiner family and you may well not want me to have it, but this letter is mine. It was addressed to me, and I'm not giving it to you."

" _Amoretta_ ," Grabiner growled a warning, and then, searching for ammunition, seized the neatly slit envelope which lay discarded on the table and thrust it in front of her eyes, "That letter was addressed to 'Lady Halifax,' not you. I am asking you to give it to me before I am forced to give you demerits for reading someone else's mail."

"Lady Halifax  _is_ me," Amoretta sighed tiredly, because she really thought that Grabiner might have had a more subtle tactic than this to use in response to the situation. "Imagine my surprise when I made that discovery."

"You weren't meant to make it," Grabiner answered darkly, his hand still out for the letter.

"Obviously," Amoretta waved him off again, then regarded the letter with some amusement. "Your father is tickled pink that you got married, by the way."

"I am not interested in my father's opinions on anything," Grabiner answered her angrily, turning his back and crossing his arms. "The least of all you and this farce of a marriage."

"Seems like you do still burn his letters unread," Amoretta noted, shrugging.

" _Miss_ _Suzerain_ _,_ " Grabiner began, wheeling on her so she experienced the full weight of his ire, "I suggest that you give me that letter  _before_ _I_ _see_ _you_ _in_ _detention_ _for_ _the_ _rest_ _of_ _the_ _day_."

This once, Amoretta was not moved by his anger. He might storm at her all he wanted, but this time he was bluffing. She knew it.

" _Hieronymous_ ," she said decisively, and thrilled at the positive rebellion of using his given name without his permission, "Don't be a tyrant. You can't give me detention for reading my own mail. Anyway, if you're so anxious to know what your father has to say about our marriage, then maybe you ought to read the letters he sends to you before you burn them."

" _Amoretta_ _Suzerain_  - " Grabiner began to storm, his anger having been pushed to heretofore unseen heights, but then Amoretta had stopped his tirade cold, because she was offering the letter to him deferentially.

"I meant no disrespect, sir," she said. "I was only being honest about my feelings. It is much more difficult for me to make good choices when I have no idea what's going on."

He was frowning and still obviously angry, but his great wrath had been curtailed. He snatched the letter from her and read it over quickly, but then he crumpled it, shoving it into one of his pockets.

"This letter was obviously written based on a mistaken understanding of our situation," Grabiner spoke between clenched teeth, glaring at Amoretta balefully, as if he could terrify her into submission. "I would ask you not to intrude into my personal affairs in the future."

This was something Amoretta was not willing to accept.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but your affairs are also my affairs," she interjected. "We have a marriage  _cum_ _manu_. My name is Marianne Amoretta Grabiner. That means your troubles are my troubles, and vice versa."

"I appreciate your intentions," Grabiner said in a dire voice that clearly indicated exactly the opposite, "But I have no use for your armchair psychiatry." He turned his back on her again and levied a final command. "Now  _go deliver the mail_."

And then, as if he had absolutely no interest in what his wife did with herself for the remainder of the day, Hieronymous Grabiner stalked off, leaving Amoretta alone in the accounting room.

* * *

As if the revelation that she was the Right Honorable Something-or-Other wasn't distracting enough for Amoretta, the whole school was soon in an uproar due to a mysterious explosion in Falcon Hall. Classes were cancelled and students ordered to stay in their dorm rooms as rumors as to what had really happened flew wild and thick through Iris Academy.

As Amoretta lay on her belly, learning verb tenses, Virginia kept her ear to the door, and whenever a new rumor spread down the hall like an infectious disease, she was ready to relay it to her two roommates, who spent their time more judiciously employed.

That morning Amoretta first heard that the entire school had been threaded with dynamite by a Rosicrucian society, then that a sinkhole to the depths of hell had opened up under one of the buildings, and finally that a poltergeist manifestation had gone out of control and blown up the entire cafeteria.

As she could peer out the window to confirm that the cafeteria was still standing, and that no sinkholes to hell had opened up  _that_ _she_ _could_ _see_ _,_  Amoretta was not entirely sure of the veracity of the rumors that Virginia dutifully reported.

But even so, it was difficult to concentrate, knowing something terrible had happened at the school, and that no one knew exactly who, if anyone, had been injured.

The only solace Amoretta could take was the knowledge that if it was Grabiner who had been injured, Petunia Potsdam would have already come to fetch her, giving some excuse or another. The fact that the headmistress had not appeared was some small comfort, even if Amoretta's stomach twisted when the rumor flashed down Horse Hall that it was Falcon Hall which had suffered the explosion.

She bit her lip and continued to try to study.

 _I'm sure Logan has everything under control_  - she tried to reassure herself.

After all, the younger of the Phifer twins was extraordinarily competent. It was difficult for her to imagine him suffering, even in a crisis. The boy had  _grace under fire_. Very few things caused him any apparent stress.

If there  _had been_  some damage to his hall, then he was probably spending the morning reflecting on the best way to capitalize on it.

But she had another friend in Falcon Hall, one who was perhaps less prepared to deal with adversity simply because he had been forced to deal with so much of it already.

_I_ _hope_ _Damien_ _is_ _all_ _right_ _._

* * *

Fortunately, at the assembly the next day her fears were allayed, as the tall devilish senior appeared to be in fine health. He even flushed a little, ruffling Amoretta's hair with a broad palm when he realized how concerned she had been over his safety.

It had been reasonable to be worried about him, she thought. Damien Ramsey was not exactly a popular figure at the school, and she knew he had been bullied harshly in the past. While there had been no violence this year, he had indicated that there had been violence in the past. Perhaps worst of all for Damien was the fact that he was so noticeably different, and did nothing to hide it.

It was easy for her to imagine that someone with a vendetta against devils had taken misguided steps to remove a dangerous and corrupting influence from Iris Academy.

And it wasn't as if she had to look very hard to find evidence of this frame of mind, since Virginia hated Damien passionately, and did not like for Amoretta to speak to him, although Amoretta had done her best to reassure her that she and Damien were just good friends, and that the devil's poor reputation was not deserved. Virginia retained her own ideas about Damien, despite Amoretta's best efforts. She thought he was the kind of scummy buildup one sometimes finds on the bottom of one's shoe.

But as it turned out, Amoretta's fears of prejudice-driven violence were unfounded.

Damien had not been the target of explosion at all, or if he had been, the perpetrator's attack had widely missed its mark.

Instead, the fire that might have claimed the lives of multiple students, had it not been detected so early, had been lit at the door to Jacob Blaising and Logan Phifer's room.

After the headmistress concluded her announcements, Professor Grabiner scattered the students from the gymnasium, moving like a hawk among chickens. They were to go back to their dormitories right away. Class would resume as usual in the morning. There was nothing else to be seen. Loitering in the hallways would not be tolerated.

Naturally, Amoretta ignored his directives. Instead of going obediently back to her dormitory, she slipped quietly out of the gymnasium. She caught Grabiner watching her steadily as she paused at the side door of the gym, but he said nothing to call her back, only frowned a little more deeply. She made a brief sign with one hand that she meant to be an entreaty for forgiveness, and then she was gone out the door, leaving him to herd the other students back into their dormitories.

Amoretta's purpose in slipping away was to see Logan Phifer. It was clear to her that Grabiner had already come to this conclusion, which is why he had allowed her to go. Amoretta was a well-known associate of the Phifer twins and Donald Danson. It was reasonable that she would want to check on her friends after such an incident. The headmistress had even told Amoretta where she could find Logan when she asked.

He and Jacob Blaising were being put up in an unused bedroom on the second floor of the main building until their dorm room could be cleaned and repaired. Like a pair of sequestered celebrities, they were in hiding from the public, at least until the excitement over the dormitory fire died down a little. They were also under guard for their own protection. It was not yet clear what had motivated the attack on their room, and the faculty obviously wanted to be certain that the boys would not be injured in a second attempt on their lives.

Although the boys were under guard by the cantankerous Professor Finch, and Amoretta worried she would be turned away at the door, she was relieved to find that Logan had asked that she be let in to see him, if she came calling. Professor Finch courteously opened the door for her and waved her in, and then she heard him locking the door behind her.

She found Logan sitting at a desk, looking pensively out the window.

The room was sparsely decorated. It contained only the bare bones of necessary furniture. There was an empty wardrobe standing open against one wall, and a simply made up four poster bed. There were no books in the room or rugs on the floor. Honestly, it seemed more like a prison to Amoretta than a safehouse.

The only thing of interest in the room was a large discolored spot on one wall. It looked suspiciously like a doorway that had been plastered over.

Across the room from Logan, Jacob Blaising was pacing back and forth - eight steps one way, an about face, and then eight steps the other way. It was a little dizzying to watch him.

As Amoretta came up to the desk where Logan sat, she said the first thing that came into her mind. "I'm really surprised that Luke isn't here."

It  _was_  surprising, certainly. Logan and his older twin brother were very close to one another. It was difficult for her to imagine a reason why Luke would be away from his brother at such a tense, uncertain moment.

"He was here earlier," Logan said, at last turning away from the window. "We've been locked up in here for hours, and it's gotten a little claustrophobic," Logan admitted with a shrug. "I'm not surprised that he finally needed some fresh air."

"Why don't they just let us out already?" Jacob demanded crossly. "We've been in here since early this morning. They can't expect to keep us locked up  _forever_. We've done nothing except be the butt of a  _lameass_  joke." The confinement was obviously chafing Jacob, who had not stopped pacing since Amoretta had arrived.

Logan waved his hand idly. "You know very well that we've been confined for our own safety. It may be inconvenient, but the faculty has deemed it necessary," he said. "Grousing about it just wastes energy unnecessarily."

"It's  _stupid_ ," Jacob disagreed, throwing his arm out in anger. "There is no good reason for them to keep us here."

"They're just being cautious," Logan disagreed mildly. "They aren't certain that this wasn't an assassination attempt. If it was, then it was very poorly handled, I admit, but it wouldn't be the first time."

At this calm observation, Amoretta grew pale, and she sat down on the corner of Logan's desk.

"An assassination attempt?" she asked in a small voice.

Logan seemed unperturbed.

"I'm the heir apparent of the House of Phifer, and Jacob is the inheritor of no small fortune himself," Logan said. "People like us always draw attention. It is part of the price of being born into an influential family."

Amoretta shook her head, obviously distressed. "I don't think you ought to call an assassination attempt 'attention,' like someone's sending you flowers," she said. She bit her lip. "Do you really think - "

"Look, it obviously wasn't an assassination attempt," Jacob cut her off, turning his back on the both of them. "It was just a prank gone wrong, which is why they've locked up Donald Danson."

Amoretta stood up again all at once and turned to face Logan Phifer, whose face still showed no emotion other than a vague sort of pleasantness.

"Donald's been locked up?" she asked, now completely confused. Donald and Luke were partners in crime, nearly always to be found in one another's company, either up to their own shenanigans, or in the service of the mastermind. Other than his own brother, Donald Danson was the closest friend that Logan Phifer had.

Logan said, "That's what Professor Finch tells us."

Amoretta bit her lip harder.

None of this made any sense at all.

* * *

Before taking leave of them, Amoretta asked both the boys if they wanted anything from the world outside their furnished room. Logan wanted nothing, but Jacob haltingly asked her to tell Minnie Cochran that he was all right. Amoretta agreed that she would, and gave both the boys an encouraging smile as she left. She looked back on Logan as Professor Finch opened the door at her knock, and found he was watching her impassively.

He hadn't asked her for anything. He knew he didn't have to. She would do it whether he asked her or not.

That was the sort of a person she was.

He gave her a very brief smile and nodded. She responded with a resolute nod, and then left the boys to their confinement. As she went she heard the rustle of cloth as Logan apparently drew something out of his pocket.

"Are you up for cards?" he asked the other boy.

Amoretta smiled to herself at that. She had been right. In peace or adversity, Logan Phifer would come out all right.

Professor Finch directed Amoretta down to the first floor of the main building when she asked him where Donald Danson was being held.

"Am I allowed to see him?" she asked.

Finch shrugged, answering, "Guess that depends on what his jailor says about it."

Down on the first floor, it wasn't hard for her to determine which of the classrooms had been converted into the county lockup. Two figures were leaning silently against the wall on either side of the door. She recognized one of them as the lean figure of Professor Grabiner, who was reading a book as he stood guard. The other figure had his back to her, but she recognized him soon enough as she drew closer.

"Luke!" she said in relief. "Here you are!"

Logan Phifer's brother looked over his shoulder when he was called, and his face showed mild mortification, as if he had been caught looking at a naughty magazine. Frantically, he raised his finger to his lips, begging her to be silent. Amoretta could not help but show her confusion, and Luke sighed, moving a little ways down the hallway and motioning her to follow him.

As Amoretta came upon Grabiner, she asked in a low voice, "What on earth has gotten into Luke?"

Grabiner did not look up from his book. "I haven't the faintest idea," he said. "He was already standing around and mooning outside this door when I returned from the assembly, but he shows very little interest in visiting his comrade." At last, Grabiner looked up at her, and she found his eyes to be very heavy. "And what about you, Miss Suzerain? Why are you here and not in your dormitory like a well-behaved girl? As if I had to ask."

"Because I'm not a well-behaved girl?" Amoretta suggested with a weak laugh. Grabiner did not apparently think her joke was funny, because all he did was stare silently at her. She pushed on, regardless. "Really, you must know why I'm out. You saw me go," she said.

The corner of Grabiner's mouth turned down momentarily.

"Yes," he admitted. "I did. The headmistress requested that I leave you to your own devices today. I can't see why she made what is so obviously a special exception in your case, as you are neither a victim nor a person of interest." He paused and eyed her critically. "Unless you have a confession to make."

Amoretta sighed and rolled her eyes. "You know I haven't," she said. "I think she understands that I'm just worried about my friends. Two of them under arrest," she looked down the hallway after Luke, who was still waiting for her, looking anxious. "And the other one's pretty obviously upset."

Grabiner shrugged, apparently unconcerned. "The truth will out," he said dryly. "Or it won't. In any case, someone will be punished for this, guilty or not."

Amoretta frowned. "That doesn't sound like justice," she said.

"It isn't meant to be," Grabiner answered laconically, and dropped his eyes on his book again. "Merely a bit of theater."

Amoretta frowned, but Grabiner would answer no more of her questions, simply pointed off down the hall, toward Luke, who was still waiting for her. She was reluctant to leave Grabiner, as she felt their conversation was still unresolved, but Luke clearly wanted to talk to her.

"What's all this about?" she asked gently, when she finally caught up to him.

"They've locked up Donald," Luke said, and he wouldn't look at her. "They're saying he's the one who set the fire."

Amoretta sighed in sympathy, because she could feel the uncertainty radiating from him.

"And that's ridiculous," Amoretta reassured him. "You and I know Donald would never do a thing like that."

Luke looked very troubled. "Well, that's what I thought at first, but then, then I got to thinking. He's always talking about making his mark on the universe," Luke turned his head so he was deliberately looking away from her. "Maybe he's changed his mind on how to do it."

"And suddenly decided to try attempted murder and arson?" Amoretta wanted to know. It all seemed so ludicrous she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

Luke looked uncomfortable. "You've got to admit that neither of us know Donald that well," Luke pointed out. "We've both only known him since September and everyone says that he's a troublemaker, even his own family."

"They think  _you're_  a troublemaker too," Amoretta pointed out with an affectionate smile.

Luke looked up at her when she said it and flushed a little, but then he looked away again.

"No," Luke disagreed, clearly faintly embarrassed. "They think I'm sort of an idiot, not a troublemaker."

Amoretta winced. "Well, I know you're not," she reassured him, and then reached out and squeezed his hand. "You're a little clumsy," she said with a smile, "But you're honest and hardworking, and you're brave and dependable. If I were in trouble, you're just the sort of person I'd want helping me," she finished, giving his hand another squeeze.

Luke hastily pulled his hand out of Amoretta's and put it to his forehead. "It's just that, if Donald had  _anything_  to do with trying to hurt Logan, I can't - "

"He didn't," Amoretta insisted, invading Luke's personal space so he would be forced to look at her. "Look, I don't really know what's going on," she admitted, "But it's something very strange. I'm willing to bet that Donald doesn't have the first clue about what happened."

Luke had frozen up when she had moved close to him, but on hearing that magic word, he suddenly relaxed.

"You're willing to bet?" he asked, some of his nervous tension fading, replaced instead with the rush of anticipation.

"You bet I am," Amoretta said with a grin, relieved that she had been able to shock him out of his funk.

"How much?" he wanted to know.

"Next week's allowance?" she said.

Luke held out his hand, ready for a shake.

"It's a bet," he said as Amoretta shook his hand. Once their shake had sealed the bet, Luke let out an enormous sigh of relief and visibly slumped.

He gave her his smile, which looked a little trodden-upon, but was warm and grateful, just the same.

"If you're gonna bet for his innocence, then it's something that I can get behind," Luke admitted.

Amoretta nodded, pleased her gambit had paid off.

"Now let's go see if Professor Grabiner will let us talk to him," she said, taking Luke's hand again and dragging him off down the hallway behind her.

* * *

Grabiner granted them a ten minute audience with his prisoner, adjusting a dial on his watch before opening the door to the classroom for them. Then he returned to reading his book, and Amoretta dragged an embarrassed Luke into Donald's holding cell.

Even as she crossed the threshold into the room, she felt a shiver run unbidden down her spine. Confused, she looked over her shoulder at Grabiner, who was still reading, as if unconcerned with their private drama.

"What is this, sir?" she asked, and squirmed in place. It felt as if her skin was crawling all over her body. She thought she might be sick.

"An anti-magic field," Grabiner answered shortly. "If Mr. Danson is indeed guilty, then he has committed a serious offense. The mode of his incarceration reflects that." He paused, silently tapping his watch with one finger. "Please do recall, Miss Suzerain, you are on a timer. Ten minutes. That is all."

Amorett moved like someone had set a lash to her heels, pulling Luke with her.

Inside the classroom-become-jailhouse, Donald Danson sat in a lone chair that had been pulled into the center of the floor, apparently for his benefit. He looked weary, but still managed to flash them a grin.

"Come to see what it's like on the inside?" he wanted to know.

Amoretta sighed, throwing up her hands. "I dunno that this is the best time to joke, Donald."

"Right in the middle of desperation is  _exactly_  the right time to joke," he argued, then leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh. "It's been pretty boring in here all day. Grabby won't even let me have a cup to rattle against the bars."

Amoretta frowned. "Is there  _any_  evidence that you had anything to do with the fire? I don't even understand why they're holding you - "

From outside the doorway, Grabiner said, "Probable cause," without looking up from his book.

Donald shrugged weakly. Amoretta knew he had to be nearing physical exhaustion from having been in an anti-magic field for hours. She was extremely uncomfortable and she had only been in it for a couple of minutes.

"Looks like they think I did it because, well," he waved a hand. "I've done lots of other stuff, right?"

"But you've never tried to  _hurt_  anyone," Amoretta broke in, "And nothing you've ever done has really been mean-spirited. It's just been  _mischief_. Holding you on this charge because of that is like trying to convict a jaywalker of armed robbery, just because he happens to jaywalk in front of a bank sometimes."

From where he stood outside the door, Grabiner snorted, but otherwise said nothing.

Donald rolled his eyes. "You enjoying eavesdropping?" Donald raised his voice slightly so Grabiner would know the question was directed at him.

"Not particularly," Grabiner said without looking up. "But as I have been set to guard you until this matter is resolved, I find myself required to do so."

"Well," Donald said with a shrug. "I hope you're enjoying the show."

"Rarely do I enjoy anything when I am forced to be your babysitter," Grabiner responded crisply, turning a page in his book.

"So long as I brighten your day," Donald answered with beautiful sarcasm.

"Stop fussing with one another," Amoretta commanded, stamping her foot. "You aren't children."

"One of us isn't," Grabiner said, and then his watch made a sound like a lot of little bells tumbling out of a basket. "And that is time." He closed his book. "Please come out of the cell."

Amoretta bit her lip. She really hadn't learned anything or gotten much accomplished.

"Don't worry, Donald," she said. "I promise I won't let them send you up the river."

Donald flashed her his devil-may-care smile again, and Amoretta felt a little better.

Luke, who had been silent up until this point, his eyes on his own shoes, at last burst out, "We believe in you, Donald! We don't think you did it."

Luke looked at Donald shamefaced, his cheeks flushed.

Donald gave him a tired thumbs up.

"Thanks, man," he said. "It really means a lot."

"Chin up!" ordered Amoretta, as Grabiner motioned them out of the room.

"Yes, ma'am," Donald said with a mock salute, and then Grabiner closed the door, locking him in the room.

Alone in the empty classroom, feeling the effects of the anti-magic field pressing hard upon him, Donald Danson closed his eyes and sighed.

* * *

Although Amoretta's visits to Logan and Donald that evening had lit up her determination to solve the mystery of the burning door, as it happened, she was not the one who ended up exonerating the jailed Wolf.

Over the next few days, a most unusual story came to light.

Although Donald Danson  _had been_  under suspicion for starting the fire, which, upon careful examination, had fortunately engulfed only one door and frame before being extinguished, he was cleared of all charges when Barbara Solmoro stepped forward with her own account of the evening. Barbara was a witch from Snake Hall whom Amoretta knew by sight and from having delivered all number of strangely shaped packages to her door. She usually studied red magic and black magic, although she was sometimes to be found in Grabiner's blue magic classes, which was how Amoretta knew her.

Barbara had apparently told the faculty that she was a ninja, and that she used the hours after curfew to practice her ninja arts in the empty hallways of Iris Academy.

 _I_ _can_ _just_ _imagine_ _how_ _accepting_ _Professor_ _Grabiner_ _must_ _have_ _been_ _of_ _that_ _admission_ _,_ Amoretta thought to herself.

She had been practicing her lethal ninja arts in Falcon Hall, throwing shuriken and kunai and leaving behind wooden dummy logs dressed in her clothing, when, as part of her regular routine, she shot a spark at the door of Logan Phifer and Jacob Blaising and the whole thing has gone up as if it had been made out of flashpaper. Then, as was perhaps not befitting a ninja, she had run off shrieking, thus rousing all of Falcon Hall before the fire could get out of hand.

Donald found himself happily cleared, and although Barbara was given demerits by Grabiner for being out of bed past curfew, she was not given any demerits for starting the fire, which had clearly been an accident.

"After all," Grabiner had growled to Amoretta later in private, "Who would make up such a ridiculous story?"

Logan and Jacob were released from their confinement, and returned to their room in Falcon Hall with no further incidents. Donald was also released from jail, which inevitably pleased Grabiner, who no longer had to spend his time acting as prison guard to the boyish miscreant.

Why the door had gone up like it had been soaked in kerosene remained an unsolved mystery. The general student population of Iris Academy, relieved to find that no one had been injured in the explosion and that no ill intent had been meant, were willing to accept that it had been the result of some strange fluctuation of the ley lines, but Amoretta remained uneasy.

The situation had been explained, but perhaps too conveniently. Most people were only concerned with who had started the fire, but Amoretta worried about who might have made the fire so easy to start in the first place.

 _I_ _'_ _ll_ _keep_ _my_ _eyes_ _open_ _,_ she thought.

* * *

Soon after the fire and the confusion it caused, Amoretta found herself facing down the March examination in the school's dungeon. This exam was held early in the month of March because the latter part of the month was largely given over to spring vacation.

After the effects of the teleportation spell wore off and Amoretta found herself among the familiar stones of the dungeon, she head Professor Grabiner's voice echoing through the halls as he laid out the purpose of this trial, as he did for so many other students.

"Somewhere in this dungeon there is a key. This key is the only thing that will allow you to unlock the exit to the dungeon and pass this test. Good luck."

A quick glance around herself reassured Amoretta that she was standing at the conflux of four corridors, whose mouths loomed open on all sides of her.

The first thing she did was cast an awareness spell, to get a feel for her surroundings. This was how she normally began each task. Knowing the lay of the land was often invaluable in solving the tasks of the examinations, and Amoretta was almost as devoted student of white magic as she was of blue magic: that is, there were few freshman students who could hope to match her. Outside of white and blue magic her expertise was rather limited. She might have even been considered something of a one trick pony had she not been so inventive in her uses of the spells she did have at her command. For her, to understand blue magic was to understand the  _nature_  of a thing, and to understand white magic was to understand the  _essence_  of a thing. The simple truth was, Amoretta was so fascinated by the twin subjects of blue and white magic that she allowed herself little time for the study of other things. Although she found black magic to be quite interesting, she had invested very little time in it. She was a bit more adept at green magic than she was at black magic, and meant to make a closer study of it in the future, but she considered red magic an entirely forbidden subject.

As she finished the incantation and called the catalyst word, the effects of the white magic spell swept over her. In her minds eye, Amoretta saw the layout of the dungeon around her, with four short corridors leading primarily to blank walls. At her back were the sealed doors and the staircase to freedom beyond them.

Well, now there was nothing else to do but investigate like Theseus in the Labyrinth.

She decided to try the corridor directly ahead of her first.

She had barely left the safety of the crossroads when she came face to face with the large, silent bulk of the manus she had first encountered looming over Professor Grabiner's body in the accounting room the morning of her unintended nuptials.

Amoretta had never imagined that she could be so calm facing down the large blue djinni, whom she knew was a powerful magical creature, and who so recently had threatened to eat her flesh and grind up her bones, but somehow she  _was_. Looking at him now, it was strange to think that he was really the one most responsible for her marriage, outside of Grabiner and herself.

Feeling that she ought to be grateful to him, if for this reason alone, Amoretta gave him her smile.

"Having a pleasant day, Kavus?" she asked genially, because whether he had intended to or not, Professor Grabiner had revealed the manus's name to her. "I imagine you're at least a little bored, being sent into the dungeons to menace first year students." She paused thoughtfully and considered, "I wonder if you're meant to be an obstacle in everyone's test, or just mine."

The blue djinni said nothing in response, although he did look at her appraisingly, one of his eyebrows raised. This close to him and in no apparent danger, Amoretta had the luxury of studying him. He had teeth like a shark and wickedly curved claws on the tips of his long, gracile fingers. His horns shone as if they had been polished, and he wore them like a crown, but his head was otherwise bald except for a flowing topknot and goatee. He wore jewelry, but no clothing. He was saved from indecency by the fact that his lower half was somewhat insubstantial and concealed inside a constantly turning twister of opaque vapor.

This was the manus of her husband, and it was loyal, as he had put it, to gens Grabiner. As she was a Grabiner, she knew she had very little to fear from him.

Amoretta shrugged, because there was nothing she could do if the manus was determined to be uncommunicative. She leaned to one side, so she could see the featureless wall that stood behind the manus.

 _Well,_  she thought to herself,  _This direction is a wash._

There was nothing else to do by try the other hallways and hope for better results.

"Best of luck then, Kavus," she wished, and then turned on her heel to go, laughing over her shoulder, "I hope Professor Grabiner isn't too harsh a taskmaster, but I certainly know from experience that he  _can_  be."

Unexpectedly, the manus remained by her side as she walked, following directly at her left.

"You are a strange girl," Kavus observed, one hand thoughtfully placed against his chin.

"So everyone tells me," Amoretta agreed, and then paused. "You know, you're really not very scary when you aren't threatening to eat me up. I do like you better this way."

"I am under contract," the manus replied smoothly, "And I am bound to do my duty. Therefore it is most effective to be civil, rather than combative."

"Would you really have eaten me up?" she asked curiously.

"Most certainly," Kavus answered nonchalantly, "And with relish. The souls of the young have a piquant freshness that is unlike anything else. Yours in particular had a peculiar and nearly irresistible taste."

"Well, that's nice to know," Amoretta said pleasantly. "I'd really hate to find out that my soul tasted horrible or something. I can't imagine that such a thing would indicate anything particularly positive about my personality."

"You are most unusual," the djinni said again, and Amoretta shrugged.

"Whether or not you planned to eat me in the past, you're not planning to eat me at the moment, so I figure I may as well let bygones be bygones," she explained practically. "I don't think it would do much good for either of us if I decided not to like you. We are in the same family now, after all."

"I may decide to eat you in the future," the djinni pointed out. "Your membership in the Grabiner family is not a permanent association."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Amoretta said with a confident nod. "If you're not my enemy, then you're my friend. That's the way I look at things."

The djinni made a hastily concealed rumbling sound which might have been laughter. "It seems to me that that is a most dangerous way to think," he observed.

"Well, I don't go looking for trouble, but I find it often enough," Amoretta admitted.

Her systematic exploration of the dungeon had brought her to a stone ball and another blank wall. The ball was much too heavy for her to move with her own power, so she decided to ignore it for the time being. She clicked her tongue. It was time to try hall number three.

Down this hall, she found the locked door, as the awareness spell had indicated. She did not even try to unlock it with an opening spell, since Grabiner had told her at the outset that such an action would be useless and she did not feel like wasting energy. That left one corridor untried.

At the end of this hallway, she found a great sealed treasure chest banded in iron. She looked at it and considered the situation. It was the most likely resting place of the key she required to exit the dungeon and pass the test.

"It seems like overkill to put one little key in such a big box," she observed aloud just for the pleasure of hearing herself speak, although the djinni still hovered nearby, thoughtfully watching her.

 _There_ _'_ _s_ _no_ _way_ _that_ _this_ _test is that_ _simple_ _to_ _pass,_ she thought to herself _._ _Walk_ _down_ _a_ _hallway_ _,_ _open_ _a_ _treasure_ _chest_ _,_ _get_ _a_ _key_ _,_ _and_ _voila_ _,_ _you_ _'_ _re_ _finished_ _._ _At_ _what_ _point_ _would_ _I_ _have had_ _to_ _use_ _magic?_ _I_ _certainly_ _couldn_ _'_ _t_ _have_ _been_ _expected_ _to_ _charm_ _the_ _djinni._ _He_ _was_ _just_ _here_ _to_ _intimidate_ _me_ _,_  she thought to herself.  _It's the box itself. It's the chest that's the test this time._

A test involving an enchanted object - and here she was with barely enough black magic to  _detect_  an enchantment, let alone permanently dispel it.

Oh well. There was more than one effective method when it came to skinning cats.

Confident in her reading of the situation, she resolutely began preparing her green spells.

Kavus watched her with interest.

"What exactly are you doing?" he asked.

"Preparing for the inevitable," she answered evenly, not letting him distract her from her layered spells. She only had a small window of time during which to make all her actions, once her spells were cast. "I'm betting that this chest has an enchantment on it. In fact, I am so certain that it does that I'm not even going to bother to  _check,"_ she said with a flash of her cheeky grin. "I imagine the chest explodes or fires off bolts of lightning or maybe even poisons me, but I am not confident enough in my black magic to disarm such a trap, so I've got to do what I can do, that is,  _weather the storm._ "

"You could always ask for my assistance," suggested the djinni, a small smile on his face as he watched her with keen eyes.

"Are you suggesting that I  _cheat_ , Kavus?" Amoretta elbowed the djinni who hovered behind her with some amusement, which caused him to drift back a little, apparently startled. "Whose test is this, yours or mine?"

"Yours naturally, mistress," Kavus answered with something bordering affection, and Amoretta winked at him, her spells finally cast.

"You know, Kavus, I really think you are I are going to be swell pals," Amoretta declared, giving him a thumbs up. Then she expertly flipped the glasses that she normally wore perched on top of her head down over her eyes as she called, "Fire in the hole!" and kicked open the treasure chest.

The explosion from treasure chest blew her back several feet and into the wall, but the strengthening and healing spells she cast beforehand meant that she was still in good enough shape to stand after the shock of being flung into the wall wore off.

Amoretta staggered about for a moment woozily, rubbing her temples while at the same time attempting to reassure the djinni. The glasses that she had worn to shield her eyes from the blast now hung on her face by only one arm. As she stood in place, swaying, she patiently returned the glasses to their accustomed spot on the top of her head.

"I'm all right. I'm all right," she insisted to the dark shape at her side, but she seemed to be talking to herself more than anyone else, since the djinni did not seem particularly concerned that she had just blown herself up.

After a moment of clearing her head, she went over to the rubble of the still smoking treasure chest and scuffed it around with one foot until she located the key. She picked it up gingerly with the edge of her cape and found it was still warm.

"I am not certain that that was the standard way of passing this trial, mistress," the djinni observed, eyeing the smoking treasure chest.

Amoretta shrugged, and then gave him another triumphant thumbs up, despite the fact that she smelled of smoke and parts of her hair had been singed, "There's no use trying to win anything with tricks you don't have, Kavus. You work with what you've got. Besides, however you manage it, a win is a win."

And although Amoretta Suzerain was somewhat soot-covered and ashy when she emerged from the dungeon, she had passed the test just the same. It was as she had told the djinni: a win was a win.

* * *

Having succeeded - albeit perhaps in an unorthodox fashion - at her most recent exam, Amoretta found that she had recouped nearly all the points she had lost in demerits during the course of her marriage to Hieronymous Grabiner. She was still at a slight deficit however, and so the next Sunday found her hard at work in the service of Petunia Potsdam, scrubbing the floors of the black magic classroom.

Ellen had elected to assist her in the task, both to keep her company and to rid herself of the demerits that Grabiner had piled on her for speaking out of turn and for daring to question the logic behind the school's examination process. It was hard work scrubbing the black magic classroom clean of all the mysterious stains and smells, but they chatted while they worked, and sometimes they sang together, either duets or rounds. Ellen was in Chorale, and Amoretta would have liked to have joined her, had her own schedule not been so full of the student council, extra lessons, her own studies, and the sports club.

They finished the task in the early afternoon, and as Ellen excused herself for a shower, Amoretta had to agree with her that they had certainly earned the ten merits Professor Potsdam had awarded them. As Amoretta flopped down on a park bench to relax, she reflected that while Petunia Potsdam was certainly in her corner concerning Hieronymous Grabiner, she really paid her no special favors. Amoretta never complained when Grabiner gave her demerits, whether or not she thought they were justified, and Professor Potsdam never meddled in their affairs, awarding Amoretta merits only when they were earned with blood, sweat, and tears.

 _I_ _suppose_ _that_ _'_ _s_ _the_ _only_ _way_ _to_ _keep_ _the_ _peace_ _,_ Amoretta thought.

After all, she was the one married to Hieronymous Grabiner, not Petunia Potsdam, whatever popular rumor might opine.

Amoretta was simply enjoying being outside in the bracing air after her day of toiling when she took note of what appeared to be an escalating altercation in the middle of the quadrangle. Being that she was a busybody - or rather, a person very concerned with the well-being of all people - she naturally could not stay seated, and arrived on the scene just in time to hear Kyo Katsura swear.

"Kyo," Minnie was saying, the apprehension clear in her troubled eyes, "I don't want to do this now, not here. Please, just leave me alone."

"I won't let you do this to me," Kyo stormed, and Amoretta could see that his hands were balled into fists. "Do you understand everything I've done for you? Do you have any idea? I make things very simple for you Minnie - "

"Katsura," Jacob Blaising broke in, stepping between Kyo and Minnie calmly, looking more disgusted than intimidated by Kyo's sound and fury, "The lady says she doesn't want to talk to you. That means she doesn't want to talk to you."

" _Blaising_ ," Kyo shouted back, "I have warned you before to stay out of my business.  _Minnie_ _belongs_ _to_ _me_ _,_ _and_ _I_ _won_ _'_ _t_ _have_ _your_ _grimy_ _demihuman_ _paws_ _all_ _over_ _her_."

Jacob's lip curled in disgust and he turned, putting his arm protectively around Minnie's shoulders.

"Come on," he said, ushering her away, "You don't have to listen to that."

Kyo stood in place as if rooted to the spot, still fuming and shouting.

"Minnie,  _don_ _'_ _t_ _you_ _dare_ _turn_ _your_ _back_ _on_ _me_ ,  _don_ _'_ _t_ _you_ _dare_ _walk_ _away_ _from_ _me_. Do you see what you've made me do, Minnie?  _Do_ _you_ _see_ _what_ _you_ _'_ _ve_ _made_ _me_ _become_ _?_  Don't  _think_ I will let you get away from me. You're the  _only_ _thing_  I care about in the  _world_ , Minnie. Minnie!  _Minnie_ _!_ "

And although Kyo shouted himself nearly hoarse, Minnie Cochran did not slow down or turn back, likely, Amoretta thought, because she had Jacob Blaising to act as shepherd and moral support.

The scene having at last played out, Amoretta was considering what she ought to do when Kyo at last wheeled around, full of fury, and his eyes fell directly upon her. Amoretta knew very well that she was a known associate of Minnie Cochran, a friend and a confidant, and she knew that Kyo knew this as well, so there was no use trying to avoid him when he came up to her like a man possessed.

"Amoretta," he moaned, all misery and loathing and anger, "You know that I love Minnie. You know I'm the  _only_   _one_ who can love Minnie. That wretch Jacob has poisoned her mind against me."

Amoretta bit her lip and chose her next words as diplomatically as possible, "Kyo, I think Minnie wants some space. I think it would be best if you left her alone."

If Amoretta had been struggling to find the right thing to say, she had not chosen the thing that Kyo Katsura wanted to hear.

"Some space?" he roared and advanced on her so he loomed over her head, bearing down on her with all his rage and frustration, " _Some_ _space_ _?_ " he repeated. "The only space she needs is the space  _I_ _give_ _to_ _her_. You women are all alike, aren't you? You're all filthy, disgusting pieces of trash who are willing to do anything for anyone who'll give you a smile."

His voice had increased in volume as his tirade had continued, until at the end of it he was raving. Amoretta saw him raise his hand to slap her and she flinched, hunching down and closing her eyes.

But then no angry blow fell, and instead Amoretta heard a very cool warning in a familiar voice.

"I suggest you carefully consider your next action, Mr. Katsura."

She opened her eyes in surprise to see Damien Ramsey at her side, one hand firmly around the wrist of Kyo Katsura, holding it perfectly still in the air, as if he had plucked a bird right out of the sky.

Kyo gnashed his teeth, but seemed wary of picking a fight with Damien. Being two years Kyo's senior, Damien outweighed him and had a height advantage. He also had wickedly curved talons on the ends of his fingers. In the end, Kyo snatched his wrist away from the devil boy and gave them both a poisonous glare before stomping off.

What attention their altercation had drawn slowly began to drift away as it became apparent that there was going to be no fist fight in the middle of the quadrangle, and Amoretta slumped in relief.

Damien's eyes followed Kyo as he left, but then he turned his attentions to her.

"Are you all right, Amoretta?" he asked, concerned.

After swallowing her slowly dissipating anxiety, Amoretta managed to give him a nod.

"I am," she said, and then shook her head, a little embarrassed, "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have just stood there, waiting for him to hit me, but I just couldn't think of anything else to do."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," Damien said soberly, but then he gave her a gentle smile. "You are a pacifist through and through. It is one of the things about you that I find most charming."

"I appreciate your stepping in to save me," Amoretta smiled back shyly.

"Whenever you're in trouble, I'll be there," Damien said, still grinning at her affectionately. "I told you, you can depend on me."

"I guess I really do," she laughed in response, and then took a deep breath and let it out again, the tension finally having dissipated. She frowned in the direction Kyo Katsura had disappeared. "I never really thought Kyo was as bad as all that. I guess Minnie hasn't really been on the level with me. I suppose that's understandable. Sometimes it's really hard to tell about it when it's happening to you."

"Is it?" Damien prompted curiously, and when she turned to look at him she found that he was holding his breath as he watched her intently. She flushed.

"I don't know," she shrugged to cover her mild embarrassment, "I suppose it must be. That's what all the books say, at least." She frowned again and laid one finger against the side of her face.

Kyo Katsura was dangerously unstable. That much was obvious to her, much more dangerous and unstable than she had previously considered based on Minnie's reports.

He was unstable and he was clearly prone to fits of rage and violence.

And he was vengeful.

Suddenly all the stray, tumbled-over pieces in her head came together in a clear picture, and she turned her face sharply to study the bulk of Falcon Hall.

 _That_ _'_ _s_ _it_ _then_ _,_ she thought.  _That_ _must_ _be_ _it_ _._

She babbled a vague sort of goodbye to Damien, who watched her with a perplexed expression as she ran from the quadrangle as if the devil himself were at her heels.

* * *

When Amoretta arrived in the accounting room, her cheeks were flaming red and she was entirely out of breath. As she shut the door behind her, she slumped against it gratefully, panting to try and restore some of the oxygen to her lungs.

Professor Grabiner, who was sitting at the table in the center of the room and reading, as she hoped he might be, raised one eyebrow, but did not close his book.

"A bit of a dramatic entrance, Amoretta," he observed, apparently unsurprised by her antics, "And I suppose there's a mob outside with torches and pitchforks?"

She ignored his barb, which she knew was just his friendly way of saying hello, and instead folded her hands over her chest, pressing against it as she regained her breath. When she trusted herself enough to speak, she crossed the room and sat down on the table, right near his open book, so he would not be able to ignore her even if he wished to do so.

"I cannot fathom what strange element of your culture has convinced you that it is acceptable to sit on a table," he began before she even had time to open her mouth. "Chairs are the pieces of furniture upon which one sits, Amoretta, not tables."

Absently she scuttled from the table to a chair she dragged up next to his, waving both her hands as if what he had to say was only of mild interest to her.

"Professor Grabiner," she burst out, all in one breath, "I've solved the mystery of the burning door."

"I beg your pardon?" he asked, one eyebrow raised again, because clearly he was not used to playing confidant to intrepid girl detectives.

"The explosion in Falcon Hall last week," she hastened to explain, leaning forward over her knees, "The door that caught fire.  _I_ _know_ _why_ _it_ _caught_ _fire_ _._ "

At this, Professor Grabiner grumbled audibly, as if he found the entire incident to be very frustrating and best forgotten.

"Amoretta, there is no mystery surrounding that burning door. As we discovered, one particular  _student_ ," he said that word with some disdain, "Was habitually breaking curfew to use the hallways of the school as a private shooting gallery. The door caught on fire as a result of her," he frowned as he finished, " _Indiscretions_. I was under the impression that this information was made public to the student body to quell panic."

"Of course it was," Amoretta agreed impatiently. "We all heard about Barbara's ninja practice. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about why the door went up like a torch in the first place."

Grabiner considered her earnest, conflicted face for a moment, then leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.

"Very well, Amoretta," he said briefly, "I am listening."

"It has to do with Kyo Katsura and Minnie Cochran," Amoretta began, but before she said another word Grabiner was waving her off in disgust.

"I have no interest in the romantic exploits of the student body. Please gossip with someone else," he delivered with a frown.

"It's not gossip, sir," she protested, her eyebrows drawn together as her forehead wrinkled in frustration, "I'm providing the motive and profiling the assailant."

Grabiner did not quite roll his eyes, but he did glance at her sidelong. She remained perfectly serious, and so he was prompted to play along with her make-believe crime drama.

He continued to frown, but at last he said, "Proceed."

Amoretta went on to tell him what she knew of Kyo's behavior toward Minnie Cochran that year, of the flowers repeatedly left at her door, the terrifying number of valentines, and the scenes of public humiliation and pressure.

And then she relayed the events just as they had happened in the quadrangle, including Kyo's raging comments concerning Jacob Blaising.

"When I suggested that he ought not see Minnie any more he went into a fury," she remembered, looking down at her lap. "I hadn't really done anything to him, but he was yelling about women in general, some pretty awful stuff. I guess he just wanted to hit me because I was there and an easy target."

Amoretta looked up when she heard the sound of Grabiner's chair move and found that he had gotten to his feet all at once.

" _Excuse_ _me_ _,_ " he asked, as if he wanted her to repeat herself, and she wasn't sure if the request was rhetorical or not.

Realizing what she had said, Amoretta leaped to her feet too, putting both her palms flat on his chest to keep him from barging out to give Kyo Katsura an unknowable number of demerits, or whatever it was that he intended to do.

"No, no," she found herself saying quickly, "I'm sorry. He wanted to hit me, but he didn't. Damien stopped him before he could, so he didn't hit me, really."

Grabiner, who had been so intent on dispatching swift justice so recently, became suddenly still at the mention of the devil boy's name.

"Damien," Grabiner repeated, "Damien Ramsey?"

"Yes sir," she admitted, glad he had been distracted from moving in haste, but worried she might have put Damien on the spot. After all, he had done nothing wrong.

Grabiner was silent for some moments, thinking.

"I wasn't aware you were acquainted with Mr. Ramsey," he said at last.

Amoretta was momentarily confused, because her friendship with Damien was a popular subject of gossip at the school. It was hardly a secret relationship.

She cocked her head to the side, "We're good friends," she explained. "Don't you remember? He was my senior during freshman initiation week."

Grabiner scowled in response to this prompting and said, "Oh yes, that absurd tradition. The school would be better off without such ridiculous displays to distract the students from their work, but the headmistress is devoted to that idiotic ritual." He paused, as if placing events in their context, then spoke again, "Yes, that would have been about the time of the incident with that letter you wrote to me," he glowered, but by this point, Amoretta was largely immune to his glowering.

"Which Damien explained to you. Then you came to apologize to me about the whole thing," she reminded.

He was silent for a moment, but surprisingly not angry.

"I suppose I did," he said. He was still for a moment longer, and Amoretta could feel him studying her with his heavy eyes. Finally he said, "Amoretta, it is no place for me to dictate your business, but I would suggest you be wary of Mr. Ramsey. One can never be sure of what a devil will do."

Amoretta frowned a little, "Sir, I've just told you that Damien had nothing to do with what happened today. He's a good friend and he looks out for me. I think everyone just has a bad impression of him because of circumstances that are beyond his control. I trust him. He has never been anything but kind to me."

Grabiner frowned and admitted, "That is what worries me."

 _Is_ _he_ _jealous_ _?_  Amoretta wondered, confused. That really didn't make any sense to her. Hieronymous Grabiner was clearly disturbed almost as much by the information that Amoretta was close to Damien Ramsey as he was by the information that Kyo Katsura was something close to an obsessive lunatic, but she really couldn't say why. She didn't want to believe it was because Grabiner was prejudiced. It had to be simply because the circumstances surrounding Damien unfortunately led people to draw incorrect conclusions about him.

Amoretta bit her lip and thought about how to go about explaining things to Grabiner, but apparently he was not interested in discussing Damien with her further, for which she was somewhat grateful. He promised to take action concerning Kyo Katsura that evening, which was some relief.

 _I_ _'_ _m_ _afraid_ _to_ _leave_ _it_ _even_ _a_ _moment_ _longer_ _,_ she thought to herself.  _This_ _whole_ _situation_ _is_ _a_ _powder_ _keg_ _._ _We_ _'_ _re_ _only_ _lucky_ _that_ _no_ _one_ _was_ _hurt_ _in_ _the_ _last_ _incident_ _._

As she turned to go, Grabiner stopped her with a question.

"Amoretta," he began slowly, as if turning it over in his mind, "What made you come to me with this information?"

Amoretta could not keep the look of puzzlement off her face as she answered honestly, "Sir, who else would I go to?"

At that moment, Marianne Amoretta Grabiner saw the first ghostly impulses of a smile on her husband's hard mouth.

He looked away and moved to place his fingertips on the book that still lay open on the table in front of him. When he spoke again, it was with a curious hesitation that was unfamiliar to her.

"In the future, when we're alone, you may feel free to call me by my given name, if the situation seems appropriate," he spoke very slowly and carefully, as if the words were very strange in his mouth. Then he paused again, as if he were uncertain whether or not he should continue. "And I wonder, I wonder if tomorrow morning you might be willing to join me for breakfast?"

Amoretta had no ability to control the blood that rushed to her cheeks, causing her to flush unmistakably.

"Yes," she answered emphatically, squeaking in her enthusiasm, "I mean, yes, sir, I'd love to.  _I_ _'_ _d l_ _ove_ _to_ _._ " She clasped her hands over her heart, and all the birds between heaven and earth were singing. "Hieronymous, I really do - "

She nearly leaped out of her skin as the door at her back was flung open with a crash.

There in the doorway, out of breath, her hair disheveled from a long run, was Ellen Middleton. Her face showed a moment of confusion as her eyes swept first from Amoretta, who was flushing, and then to Grabiner, who was looking pointedly away. Then she seemed to remember that she had come on an urgent errand, and it all burst out of her at once.

"Professor, you've got to come quickly. There's a fight going on in the quad. I think Kyo Katsura's nose may already be broken - "

Amoretta turned on her heel, startled. "Is it Kyo and Jacob?" she asked, astonished. She had hoped their altercation had been defused, at least for the moment.

Ellen shook her head. "No," she said. "It's Kyo and Luke Phifer. I'm afraid one of them is going to be seriously hurt. Please Professor - "

Amoretta's mind was sent spinning by this unexpected revelation. Did Luke suspect, as Amoretta did, that Kyo was the perpetrator of the incident that had put his brother's life in danger?

Grabiner was already pushing past Ellen, who still stood in the doorway.

"I'll handle this," he assured Ellen brusquely, then he waved them off with one hand. "You're both dismissed," he said, as if they might have been enlisted men standing at attention. Then he paused briefly at the threshold of the room and his eyes swept back to Amoretta. "I'll see you in the morning," he said shortly. "Seven-thirty."

Amoretta nodded her understanding of his meaning, and then he was off down the hallway to break up the schoolyard brawl.

Ellen stared at Amoretta for a long moment and it seemed like she had something to say, but in the end she said nothing.

"I hope Luke's all right," Amoretta worried, hugging herself.

Both the Phifers had been through a lot lately, it seemed.

"I'm no expert on fist fights, but I think he was giving worse than he was getting," Ellen said quietly.

"But Kyo is taller than he is, and you know, just generally bigger," Amoretta worried. Neither of the Phifers were particularly tall, and while Luke was certainly the more athletic of the two of them, he wasn't what Amoretta would have identified as  _burly_. She shook her head. "I wonder what got into him. He's usually so even-tempered."

Ellen shook her head. "I wouldn't know. I was on my way to the park when I saw it all start. They were arguing about something. Luke looked  _really angry_. Then he punched Kyo  _right in the face_." She sighed. "I'm going to back to the room now. I think I've had enough excitement for the day. I'll just read inside instead." She cocked her head to the side. "Are you coming?" she asked.

Amoretta shook her head.

"No," she said. "I think I ought to stay. I'm worried about Luke."

Ellen shrugged as if to say, 'Have it your way,' and then departed back toward Horse Hall.

* * *

Amoretta lingered in the hallway outside of the accounting room for some minutes, and eventually she was rewarded by Grabiner's homeward march. He came bringing two prisoners of war with him. Kyo Katsura looked excessively sullen, his head down as he glowered to himself, his hands covering his bleeding nose. Luke had a darkening black eye and several shallow cuts on his face. He looked battered, but resolute. Grabiner frowned when he caught sight of her loitering outside the accounting room door, and tried to point her silently off down the hallway in the direction of the boys' dormitories, which was the quickest way out of the main building from where she stood. She telegraphed her confusion and was about to comply, but before she could, Kyo caught sight of her.

" _You_?" he stormed, his voice rising. " _You_  of all people, right here, right in front of me.  _You_? You little - "

Amoretta was extremely confused by Kyo's animosity, which seemed to be directed very personally  _at her_ , and she stepped back a half step, pressing herself against the wall behind her.

Luke made to overtake Kyo, an obvious attempt to keep him from continuing what it was that he meant to say, but Grabiner put a restraining hand on the boy's shoulder.

Then he cut into Kyo's tirade mercilessly. "You will remain silent, Mr. Katsura, if you value your tongue."

Kyo wheeled on Grabiner with a look that was brutal and poisonous with pent up rebellion.

Grabiner was unphased and faced the boy expressionlessly. "I would take great pleasure in subduing you further, Mr. Katsura, should you make that necessary."

Kyo turned back around and said nothing, well knowing he was out-classed.

At last having brought the situation under control again, Grabiner shifted his eyes to Amoretta.

"Leave us," he said. "You are exacerbating this situation."

Amoretta nodded hurriedly, casting a worried look at Luke as she moved off toward the nearby exit.

Luke gave her a smile, which brought her both comfort and relief.

Her last glimpse of them as she pushed through the heavy exterior doors was Grabiner directing Luke into his blue magic classroom while he pointed Kyo into the accounting room and followed him in, apparently for interrogation.

Amoretta found herself unable to discover any further concrete information concerning Luke and Kyo's altercation that evening - although it was the talk of all the girls' dormitories - but she was sure the whole story would come out soon enough.

Perhaps her source of information would be Grabiner himself, since he had made a date with her for breakfast the following morning.

Her excitement over the promise of the coming morning pushed the worries out of her heart, and she was able to sleep soundly, despite her concern for Luke.

* * *

The next morning Amoretta experienced the unusual pleasure of sleeping in until six forty-five. She really couldn't remember the last time she had slept so late, but suspected it was probably the day before she had discovered Hieronymous Grabiner passed out in the accounting room with a djinni hovering over him.

Although she slept in, she left herself plenty of time to shower leisurely, make sure all her books were neatly prepared for class, and dress herself tidily before she was to meet her husband at the school cafeteria for that promised breakfast. That he had asked her to eat with him meant quite a lot to her. Perhaps most importantly it meant that he had begun to accept that she was a real presence in his life with a genuine reason for being there, as opposed to being the result of some unfortunate mistake of fate. Amoretta was honestly very happy. He was beginning to open up to her, little by little. She had become someone familiar to him. He had become someone familiar to her.

 _He_ _really_ _can_ _'_ _t_ _terrify_ _me_ _anymore_ _,_  she thought, giggling to herself the way all girls do when they are in love and believe they have discovered some secret that no one on earth has considered before.

He had become someone that she trusted implicitly, so of course she was not afraid of him.

These dreams spun so beautifully in the air did much to distract her that morning on her way to the cafeteria, so much so that she, perhaps unkindly, forgot about Luke Phifer and his black eye almost entirely. But although her head was among the clouds, eventually she recognized that there was something strange about the way people were behaving in the halls and corridors.

Everywhere she looked, people were bunched up and whispering behind their hands. Eyes followed her when she moved and stayed on her when she stood still. It was all very strange, and briefly she worried that she might be having a nightmare, the sort of nightmare where one dreams one is face down in the ocean and has no conception of how to swim.

As she leaned against the wall, biting her lip, Manuel Arias, the soft spoken boy with the tufted ears that stood up so noticeably on the top of his head approached her with a very worried look in his eyes.

"Are you all right?" he asked, concerned.

She nodded and gave him a smile, "I'm fine," she said, "I'm just not really sure - "

"Is he terribly cruel to you?" Manuel asked, taking one of her small hands in his. "I'm sure he must be. I'm sure it's like being with the devil himself." His ears twitched suddenly and then flattened against his head, as if he realized the import of what he'd just said, and then he was saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean - " before he ran off in a panic.

The color had begun to drain slowly out of Amoretta's face while Manuel was speaking, and when he fled she found herself feeling lifeless and terrified.

 _He_ _couldn_ _'_ _t_ _mean_  -

But then Suki was approaching her, her pale hair wobbling strangely in her twin pigtails. "My condolences on your marriage," she said, bowing and making a sign with her hands that Amoretta hazily thought might have been meant to be religious. "Perhaps if you bury some fermented beans three paces behind an oak tree, Professor Grabiner will consider divorcing you."

With this advice imparted, Suki continued on her way, leaving Amoretta slumped against the wall and assured of her own imminent doom.

_I_ _'_ _ll_ _be_ _expelled_ _._ _I_ _'_ _ll_ _be_ _expelled_ _and_ _my_ _magic_ _will_ _be_ _sealed_ _._ _I_ _'_ _ll_ _be_ _expelled_ _and_ _my_ _magic_ _will_ _be_ _sealed_ _and_ _Professor_ _Grabiner_ _will_ _hate_ _me_ _forever_ _and_ _ever_ _and_ _ever_ _._

Two people having had the courage to approach her, it was as if a dam had broken and suddenly she was washed over with questions and comments concerning her supposedly secret marriage to Hieronymous Grabiner.

"So that's why the door to the accounting room is always locked - "

"Hey, tell me something, is he as stone cold in bed as he is in class? If he is, I feel really sorry for you - "

"No, no, don't you know that still waters run deep? I bet he's a madman - "

"Hey Amoretta, he's given me a whole lot of demerits this month. Do you think you can put in a good word for me?"

"Does that mean he gives you demerits if you don't kiss him?"

"I bet he gives her demerits if she  _does_  kiss him!"

The small and normally close-knit student body of Iris Academy had become a mob, and Amoretta closed her eyes against the tears as she stumbled through the throng filled with people who were all anxious to know what it was like to be married to the school's least popular teacher.

Rushing forward, rubbing one wrist against her eyes ineffectually, Amoretta stumbled and fell flat on her face. As she struggled up on her hands and knees she found herself face to face with the feet of Angela Kirsch. She couldn't say for certain that the senior girl had tripped her, since she had been running without much heed for where she had been going anyway, but the smug look of superiority on the older girl's face made it clear that she was not sorry that Amoretta had fallen and she made no attempt to help her up.

"Finally where you belong, Suzerain?" taunted Angela, one hand on her hip. "But of course, you're used to that position, since that's the way you earned your reputation as the most skilled user of blue magic in the freshman class. You've had plenty of special lessons, I'm sure."

At that, despite the tears and the shame and the terror she was experiencing, Amoretta struggled to her feet to look up into Angela's face with unbridled wrath.

"I _do not care in the slightest_  what you say about me," she stormed, "But Professor Grabiner has done  _nothing wrong_  - "

All at once she felt a hand on her wrist as hard as a manacle of steel, and she looked over to find herself face to face with Hieronymous Grabiner himself, looking as if he regularly reaped the souls of the dead and stuffed them in a bag to carry them to the underworld.

Angela quailed and pressed herself back against the wall behind her, and Grabiner said only, " _Come_ _with_ _me_ _,_ " in a voice that sounded like a death knell before dragging Amoretta bodily off.

Amoretta, still spoiling for a fight with Angela despite the tears that stood in the corners of her eyes, found herself dragged along heedlessly by Grabiner, who refused to speak when she asked him where they were going.

In the end, she found herself thrown into an empty classroom and heard him slam the door behind himself.

Although she had been cast to the ground, Amoretta struggled to her feet, pushing the hair out of her face and rubbing at her eyes, all the while trying to make sense of what was going on.

"I don't understand what's happening," she whimpered.

"I don't want to hear your excuses," Grabiner roared, turning on her with a fury. "I suppose you always will have excuses, won't you Miss Suzerain? I am tired of listening to them and I am tired of listening to your lies."

"Hieronymous?" Amoretta asked uncertainly, taking a step backward, because he was more angry than she had ever seen him before, far more angry than he had been the night of their unfortunate marriage.

" _Silence_ ," he demanded, and with a sharp flip of his wrist she found herself pinned to the far wall of the classroom, hanging nearly a foot off the ground.

He advanced on her slowly, never taking his eyes from her face. At that moment she knew that he hated her more than she had ever hated anyone in her entire life, and she began to sob.

"I have no use for your crocodile's tears, Miss Suzerain," he spat out her name as if it were a mouthful of slugs, and personally repellent to him. "I am sure you thought it all was a great joke, this whole stupid, horrifying mess. After all, I told you myself how it was a common freshman initiation prank for students to declare their affections for me, didn't I? And you have played the grandest, rudest, most flagrantly disgraceful prank of them all. Of course, the blame isn't all yours, is it? I was fool enough to almost be taken in."

" _Hieronymous_ ," Amoretta begged, beginning to hyperventilate from the stress of the situation.

Grabiner, who now stood only a pace away from her, drew his finger through the air like it might have been a knife, and she felt her tongue grow as cold and still as if it were made of stone.

" _Say_ _that_ _word_ _again_ _and_ _I_ _will_ _seal_ _your_ _tongue_ _for_ _the_ _rest_ _of_ _the_ _year_ ," he threatened.

Without any way to respond to him now, pinned to the wall and silent, Amoretta could only follow him with her eyes while she trembled and shook, fighting to breathe while all the time feeling more and more light-headed from her hyperventilation.

"I am sure you imagined yourself quite untouchable, to have played such a grandiose joke. After all, as your husband I cannot do a single thing to harm you until the year of our marriage contract is up," and here he approached her very closely so she could hear him threaten darkly, "But do not think because I cannot harm you that I have no ways of making your life  _misery_. Push me again, idiot girl, and we will find out together just how deep the dungeons under this school go. I will be happy to leave you in an oubliette for the remainder of the year, silent and forgotten, but very,  _very_ safe."

He turned his back on her and snapped his fingers so that the bind holding her against the wall came loose, and she fell forward onto her hands and knees, skinning her palms against the stone of the floor.

When he spoke again, his voice was very cold. "I suggest you do not speak to me for the rest of the term, Miss Suzerain, or I may forget that I am your husband and bound to protect you."

Then, without another word and without a backward glance at her, he left the room, apparently determined never to lay eyes on her again.

* * *

Somehow Amoretta managed to make it back to her dorm room in Horse Hall, where by signs she indicated to Ellen she had been silenced, and the serious blonde witch dispelled her without much trouble. Amoretta was grateful for this small kindness, even as she dissolved into sobs, curled up on Virginia's bed.

"What happened to you?" Virginia demanded, "You really look like a total wreck, like somebody kicked you down the stairs and you hit every one on the way down! Is it that crazy rumor that's flying around everywhere? Have people been bullying you because of it? If you tell me who's been bullying you, I'll go lay 'em out right now!" declared Virginia enthusiastically, pounding one fist into an open palm.

When Amoretta said nothing, simply curled up in a tighter ball to sob, Virginia was at a loss.

"I dunno what to do," she confessed. "I'm just trying to help her out."

Ellen frowned, and then moved to sit on Virginia's bed, where Amoretta still lay curled up like a beaten puppy.

"I have some idea who might have put her in such a state," Ellen said quietly, "And it's not someone I'd suggest you tangle with right now."

The color left Virginia's face as she turned with astonishment to Ellen, "You don't think that crazy rumor is true, do you? You don't think Amoretta really went and got hitched to Grabby, do you?"

"I think," said Ellen slowly, "That there are a lot of things that we haven't been told."

In the end, realizing that there was no reason to keep secrets any longer, Amoretta told her story in fits and starts, from that first morning in the accounting room to the awful scene she had endured only moments before. At the end of her telling, Virginia was fighting mad again.

"What a snake!" she yelled angrily. "I ought to go find him and then push  _him_ down a flight of stairs!"

"He didn't push me down a flight of stairs," Amoretta reminded her, wrapping her arms around herself. Perhaps it might have been easier if he had. She shivered, "Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe that's why all this happened."

It was Ellen who spoke next, sober and quiet, "Maybe you did."

" _Ellen_ ," stormed Virginia angrily, but Ellen held up her hand for silence so she could explain herself.

"I really can't say if you did something wrong or not, Amoretta," Ellen said calmly, then shook her head. "Oh I know you didn't spread the rumor that you were married to Professor Grabiner, but that doesn't mean that you're guiltless and faultless. No one is guiltless and faultless. If you're expecting us to absolve you of your responsibilities, we can't." She smiled a little, as if to soften her difficult words, "I think a lot of wonderful things about you, Amoretta, but that doesn't mean I think you're incapable of making mistakes." Here Ellen paused and slowly shook her head again. "Maybe that's just what this is: a really long mistake that you're just beginning to discover."

Amoretta trembled, but had no answer.

* * *

In the end, the knocks on the door to their room continued for hours, even though Virginia left to lead a false search for Amoretta in the gymnasium and Ellen continued to solidly turn away all-comers with plausible deniability that would have impressed even the Central Intelligence Agency.

At last Amoretta could take it no more, and against Ellen's advice she climbed out the window of the dormitory and made her way to the accounting room, which was dark and silent and locked at this hour. She let herself in with her own little key and then locked the door behind her, not even bothering to turn on a light in the small room.

Then, crawling into the far corner of the room, Amoretta wrapped her arms around her legs and curled up into a little ball to cry and dwell on her own misery.

* * *

After some time, Amoretta's slow, terrible anguish was disturbed by the smallest of sounds: all the pins in the lock of the accounting room door turning at once. The door was opened softly, and then closed softly, and looking up between sniffles Amoretta found herself facing the tall, quiet height of Damien Ramsey, his face lit by the pale glow of a witchlight that hovered over his hand, barely brighter than a firefly.

When he spotted her there, hunched in the corner, he knelt and spoke in a low voice.

"Are you all right, Amoretta?" he asked.

Amoretta struggled to master herself. She was not all right. She was not all right at all. She had already been sick twice in the garbage can in the other corner of the room, despite the fact that she had had nothing to eat all day.

"I'd rather not talk to anyone right now, Damien," she said between sniffles, hugging her knees tightly.

Across from her, Damien smiled perhaps a bit bittersweetly and then said, "Amoretta, I told you, you don't have to hide anything from me. I don't care what anyone else says. You're Amoretta, and that's all that matters to me."

He held out his hand to her, beckoning, and Amoretta, feeling very weak and pitiful, accepted it, and was gratified when he squeezed it warmly.

After they had joined hands, haltingly, he asked, "Did  _he_  do something to you, Amoretta? Is that why you're hiding in here?"

Amoretta sighed heavily, feeling exhausted, and said, "He hates me. He hates me more than anyone else in the whole world. That's why I'm hiding in here."

Damien frowned, and moved to sit next to her, still keeping a firm grip on her hand.

"Amoretta, I don't hate you," he soothed her gently. "No matter what happens, I'll never hate you."

Amoretta slumped against him as they sat against the wall, shoulder to shoulder. She was very tired and everything was very difficult.

"Right now, I hate myself," she confessed, and then she felt his broad hand on her head, gently stroking it.

"Amoretta," Damien began slowly, his voice low and gentle, "I know everything has been very hard for you. You've been expected to be things and do things that no one ought to expect of you, not when you're such a young girl, not when you're such a good girl. It's been very difficult for me to stand back and watch all this happen."

He shook his head.

"I'm not willing to watch it happen any more," he said quietly, with some decisiveness.

Amoretta jumped at his sudden change in tone, but Damien kept gently stroking her hair.

"It will be all right, Amoretta. Everything will be all right. It's still a couple of months before I graduate," he began, "But it doesn't really matter if I leave school early. I've never been wanted here anyway," he laughed quietly, and Amoretta could feel the bitter sadness in his voice, "But I've been preparing things for a while now, darling. I've been preparing things for you and for me. If you come away with me now I'll take care of you, and you won't have to be frightened any more. I'll care for you, Amoretta. I'll worship you. I'll take you away to a place where no one knows our names and faces and we can just quietly be together."

Amoretta pushed away from Damien, confused, but found she had no place to go but the corner behind her.

"Damien, I don't - "

"I know you don't love me yet," Damien continued on soothingly, his voice strangely and sweetly hypnotic, "I don't expect you to, but I know you'll come to love me in time, Amoretta. I can't promise you it will be easy, but what is your life here? It certainly isn't easy. I will never yell at you, Amoretta. I will never be cross with you. How could I ever be cross with you? You're the only one who's ever really been kind to me. Come away with me now, Amoretta. Come away with me tonight. Everything is waiting. There's nothing here for you, just a lot of so-called friends who have been feeding on you like vultures," his voice was sharp again for a moment, sharp and full of venom, but then he was soothing her, stroking her hair and speaking softly. "I know that those people you live with in the country aren't even your real parents. They're just your aunt and uncle. You told me that yourself. Together, we could be a real family. Isn't that what you've always wanted, Amoretta, a family all of your own?"

"I can't," cried Amoretta, shaking her head so that her hair flew around her face. " _I_ _can_ _'_ _t_ _and_ _I_ _don_ _'_ _t_ _want_ _to_ _,_ " she insisted with some force. "I don't want to leave this place. I love it here, with all my friends, and my - I don't  _want_  to leave - "

But suddenly Damien was no longer interested in soothing her and calmly stroking her hair. Instead he grabbed both of her wrists with one hand and pulled her close to him.

"I'm sorry, my dear," he said crisply, and suddenly he sounded quite calm and businesslike. He got to his feet, pulling her upright with him. "But I am sure you'll come around to my way of thinking once I get you away from this place. You  _will_ thank me. I'm sure of it."

Being a non-combative witch with less than a year's experience with magic, Amoretta could not do much in the way of spellcasting in hopes of freeing herself, but she did deliver a swift kick to Damien's shin. He took little notice of her act of rebellion.

"Put me down!" she demanded, more to make noise than because she thought he might. She squirmed and kicked as hard as she could.

"I think I won't," Damien admitted to her teasingly, apparently amused, and then she realized he had begun the chant to a teleportation spell and she opened her mouth to yell in distress.

Before she got a sound out, she saw him snap his wrist sharply, interrupting his teleportation spell to spit out another incantation instead. The target of this new spell was her throat, and she immediately felt herself falling under the effects of the silencing spell again even as she struggled against it.

He was just about to turn his attention back to his teleportation spell when he suddenly braced himself, and Amoretta felt herself thrown back a little by the shock as the door of the accounting room was blown entirely off its hinges by a spell that left the twisted wood smoking.

There in the doorway stood a bareheaded Hieronymous Grabiner, his cloak thrown over one shoulder and his wand thrust out in accusation.

"I suggest you  _unhand_ _my_ _wife_ ," he demanded with barely controlled fury, "If you do not wish to have your head blown off your body."

Damien had already moved smoothly so that he held Amoretta as a shield between Grabiner and himself.

"Temper, temper, Professor," Damien chuckled, clicking his tongue. "We've been expecting you, haven't we, Amoretta?"

At this prompting, Amoretta kicked Damien again as hard as she could, which he continued to ignore, as if a kitten were playing with his fingers.

Damien was still talking. "You know, for weeks I wondered who it was who had nearly stolen her out from under me, but then I realized that it was you. Who else could it be but  _you_?" His sneer was audible as he lingered over the final word of the sentence. "But what you have to understand, sir, is that you never had the slightest chance. This girl has been mine since the moment she set foot on this campus. You could never hope to take her away from me." As he finished, Damien smiled the smile of a predator as he brushed his fingertips across her face. This smile was radically different from the one he had given her so commonly when they chatted together, cruel and hungry and superior.

And then slipped his hand from her face, down her neck, and into her collar, so that his whole palm came in contact with the bare flesh of her shoulder.

And then her skin began to burn.

Amoretta could not scream because she had been silenced, but the pain was so unbearable that she screamed anyway, although she made no sound. She screamed with her whole body. She screamed with her soul.

At that moment, Hieronymous Grabiner shouted, "Kavus!" at the top of his lungs and the temperature of the room began to climb rapidly as he built a spell up as hot as a wildfire. It took him less than a second to throw the spell, and when he did it was so hot that it caused the paint on the walls of the accounting room to curl up and peel. The result of the spell was a terrible explosion and a sound similar to a sonic boom, and Grabiner ran right into the thick of it, to the spot where Damien Ramsey had stood, moments before.

There on the ground, shielded by the djinni, lay Amoretta, still twitching feebly in pain, her left shoulder dark with the blood of some concealed wound.

Before him spread the open sky, the night dark and filled with stars.

He had blown open the back wall of the accounting room, and taken out some of the floor above as well.

Of Damien Ramsey, there was no sign.

Grabiner was already muttering a tracing spell under his breath when felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find himself face to face with Petunia Potsdam, whose hair nearly crackled around her face with suppressed energy.

" _Hieronymous_ _Grabiner_ ," she spoke in a voice furious and full of power, "Do not imagine that I am about to let you run off chasing that devil."

" _He_ _has_ _cursed_ _her_ ," Grabiner shouted back at the headmistress, his own rage and grief barely concealed, "It may well be fatal. If I can catch him - "

" _If_ _he_ _catches_ _you_ _then_ _she_ _will_ _surely_ _die_ ," Professor Potsdam's truth lashed out like a snake, and he was unprepared for it and flinched. "Hieronymous, you are the only thing standing between her and whatever fate he intends for her." Professor Potsdam explained gently, "You must stay here and take care of your wife."

She turned to face the dark night, filled with trembling shadows, and then said, "I will chase down the devil."

And then, before he could say anything else, she had gone, following the signs of the tracing spell he had already cast.

On the ground Amoretta's body spasmed, and her eyes rolled around sightless in her head. She was probably already delirious from the pain. He knelt down next to her and let his hand hover over the damp spot on her shoulder, muttering a few words to a green magic spell that soothed anguish, then he brushed his fingers across her lips and dismissed the silencing spell.

Amoretta moaned, half conscious, but Grabiner saw her eyelids flutter as he picked her up as gently as he could.

" _Hieronymous_?" she asked, and he was startled that she had the presence of mind to recognize him.

He answered quietly that he was.

"I hurt awfully," she confessed pitifully, as if she were a very little child.

"It's all right," he heard himself saying more confidently than he felt, "I'm going to take care of you."

"Oh," she said weakly, "Oh," she repeated herself absently, and then did her best to smile, although the feeble emotion was soon pushed from her face by a grimace of pain as she bit her lip. " _I_ _'_ _m_ _glad_."

Hieronymous Grabiner swore loudly, a string of curses no other student had ever heard pass his lips before, and then called the manus to his side.

"Go before us and open the doors," Grabiner commanded, and the manus did as he was bidden.

Looking down at her in the moonlight, Grabiner realized that Amoretta had wrapped her slender fingers around a bunch of fabric in his sleeve and was holding onto it like it might have been a precious relic from the past.

Pulling her a little closer to his body, as if he feared she might evaporate into the night air, leaving him with nothing but memories, Hieronymous Grabiner carried his wife into the dark school.


	6. Four: If He COULD Be Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh, no. I wouldn't want to marry anybody who was wicked, but I think I'd like it if he COULD be wicked and WOULDN'T."
> 
> L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

Once, when she had been a very little girl, Amoretta had fallen into the deep well of death that is hypothermia.

One morning, shortly after midwinter's day, she had been leaning out over an undercut creek bank, examining the icicles that hung underneath it, when she had lost her grip on the grass and tumbled down the bank, sliding out onto the ice below. It had not been a long fall, perhaps three feet, and so she had been startled more than injured. Upon trying to climb out of the creek and back onto the bank she slipped and fell and the ice underneath her broke under her weight.

The creek had not been a deep creek or a wide creek, just the sort of small mountain creek that is so common that it goes by no name at all. When she went through the ice she landed in about a foot and a half of water, which quickly soaked through her trousers, socks, shoes, and the hem of her sweater. By the time she managed to crawl up on the bank again, she was covered in slick, icy black mud.

Although it had been cold, more than the cold Amoretta had feared the spanking she would get when she got back home. She had wandered much further away from the house than she was really allowed to go, and she had fallen into the creek and ruined her clothes besides. These thoughts made her slow as she trudged back home through the bitter cold.

As she stomped solidly forward through the snow, Amoretta would not have said that she was really any colder than usual on a December day. She smelled of black creek mud, but the cold burnt the inside of her nose so sharply that it was difficult to smell anything anyway. Although she stuffed her hands into her pockets, her fingers remained as stubbornly cold as stone. Her feet were already numb from being in the water, but her feet had been numb in the past, sometimes even in the safety of her own home, when she went around in the mornings for a long time without wearing socks or slippers.

It was perhaps peculiar, that although Amoretta walked with death at her shoulder, the thing that she feared the most was being punished at home. Strangely, as she trudged onward, the distance between she and her home never seemed to lessen, and over time it seemed that the longer she walked, the further away her home was. She didn't really understand it, because it had become very difficult to think. More than pain, more than the cold, what she felt was a curious distance from the world. Things that had made easy sense to her in the past had no meaning any longer, and she couldn't say who she was, or where she had been going in the first place.

It was then that she began to realize that she was facing down her own death.

She was not afraid. She had become too removed from the situation to be afraid. She was not curious, because curiosity was too strong a word for the vague emotion that she felt. She felt no tragedy. She merely felt dull and hapless. If she could have cried at that moment she might have, not out of fear or sorrow, but more because she found herself to be very small and pitiful.

As she floated in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of the fact that Professor Grabiner was carrying her through the halls of the academy, she felt that same strange feeling of disconnection and pity.

_How_ _sad_ _,_  she thought as she drifted out of consciousness again.  _It_ _is_ _all_ _very_ _sad_ _._

* * *

If Amoretta found herself to be an indifferent spectator to the chaotic circus of pain and confusion that was unfolding at her feet, Hieronymous Grabiner was anything but.

His earlier calamitous spellcasting had caused the adrenaline to sing in his veins, and he was still riding an adrenaline high as he carried Amoretta's twitching body through the corridors of the school, turning to sidestep through the doors that the manus Kavus held open for him, his mind working furiously as he moved with purpose toward the second floor of the main building.

Petunia Potsdam had forbidden him to give chase to the demon Damien Ramsey, although this was something that he was still chafing to do, the palm of his wand hand itching so violently it was as if he had but his hand down on a contact poison. It had been a very long time since Hieronymous Grabiner had killed someone in an exchange of magic. It had been a long time since he had thrown a spell at someone with the intent to kill them. The times he had been driven to the edge of murderous despair and rage when he had been a young man were long past and buried in a dark corner of his heart. He had taken it for granted that the passage of time and his self imposed solitude had dulled the violent end of his temper.

Certainly, he had not felt this way in a very long time.

But now, at this singular moment, he was sure of one thing, if he was sure of one thing  _only_.

The next time he saw Damien Ramsey, he would kill him.

It did not matter in the least what Petunia Potsdam had to say about it. It did not matter what Amoretta had to say about it, if indeed she was capable of saying anything at all.

He would not ask any questions of the demon boy. He would not say a single word.

He would simply kill him, regardless of time or circumstances.

That was all there was.

In his arms, Amoretta made some unintelligible sound, and his eyes briefly flicked down to take in her condition. She was burning up with a fever, her whole body hotter than seemed physically possible. Her skin was covered with a clammy sweat that gave her a strange sheen, like oil standing on the surface of water. When she twitched, it was clearly an involuntary movement, a spasm as her confused brain sent random nervous impulses through her limp body.

He frowned, his brows drawn together as he finally sidestepped through the door to his own rooms.

_Why_ _this_ _girl_ _?_  his mind screamed angrily. Of all the students in all the years he had taught at Iris Academy, of all the dire situations he had helped to avert, of all the lives he had saved through a combination of toil and intimidation, why had his most catastrophic failure been _this girl?_

His face was grim and his lips thin as he laid her down on the bed because of course he knew the truth. There was no hiding from oneself.

This situation, however foul it might seem, was surely not the most catastrophic failure of his life. That distinction belonged to a day long past, when he had stood knee deep in corpses and watched her smile that defiant, heart-wrenching smile as the blood seeped out of her ears, slipping down the sides of her face like tearlines.

_And_ _what_ _have_ _all_ _these_ _years_ _taught_ _me_ _?_ he thought bitterly as he unfastened the cape from Amoretta's neck and pulled it away to reveal the spreading stain on her left shoulder, as dark as if pitch had been smeared across it.  _Nothing_ _._ _I_ _am_ _the_ _same_ _fool_ _now_ _that_ _I_ _was_ _then_ _._

He fetched some scissors from his desk drawer, because at this point there was nothing else to do but cut away the top of her robe, exposing her shoulder and collarbone. To try and pull the robe off of her without cutting it open would be difficult and possibly cause her injury, particularly when he was not yet sure of the extent of her wounds. While green magic and good medicine were perhaps at the bottom of the list of Grabiner's masteries, living for years as one of the few custodians of a school populated by accident magnets had made him aware of the more basic elements of critical care.

Of course, he was much more accustomed to fighting fires than he was to tending the injured. Usually the headmistress took charge of caring for the students, leaving Grabiner to fight the battles and judiciously hand out demerits, when such action was necessary. With the circumstances reversed, Grabiner could not help but uncomfortably realize that Petunia Potsdam had seemed much more confident in her role as huntswoman than he was at being left as a nurse.

_That_ _woman_ _,_  he thought with vague and confused frustration.  _She_ _still_ _treats_ _me_ _as_ _if_ _I_ _was_ _a_ _boy_ _._

And it was true. Although to the students of Iris Academy Grabiner and Potsdam might have seemed of similar ages and thus of largely equal social position, the truth was that the witch was much older and more powerful than she at first seemed. Although she was often content to leave him up to his own devices, when she delivered a verdict to him from on high, she did so brooking no rebellion, open or otherwise.

_Why_ _she_ _believes_ _she_ _has_ _the_ _right_ _to_ _order_ _me_ _around_ _-_  he thought angrily.  _She_ _'_ _s_ _not_ _my_ _mother_ _._

But his misdirected anger aside, he had to admit that the headmistress had been correct this time.

No matter how much he might have wanted to run down Damien Ramsey until the boy was just a dark smear across the ground, at the moment he had other responsibilities. He was afraid his wife was going into hypovolemic shock.

With the top of the robe cut open and carefully peeled away, he finally had some understanding of what Damien Ramsey had done to her.

Amoretta's right shoulder was pale and round and gently sloped. Her clavicles were fine and narrow because she was a very small person, and the hollow of her throat trembled with her labored breathing. The camisole she wore underneath her robe was stuck to her skin with coagulating fluids, but the damning thing, the  _terrible_  thing, was her left shoulder.

There, burnt into her skin as if she had been touched by a flaming brand, was the mark of a hand, with deep wells for the fingertips where he had gripped her so savagely. The skin of the mark was wet with blood so dark it was almost black, and blisters were already rising like bloated corpses. Her breath was rapid and ragged, and has he laid his hand against her forehead he realized that she had gone from burning hot to weirdly chilly in only a few moments.

He swore again and concentrated on first casting a spell that would do something to rhythmically restore the blood she had lost and then began to layer strengthening and healing spells on her. To cast constantly with no breaks for breathing was exhausting, but if he meant to tether her to the land of the living then he had no other choice, since his green magic was not such that he could have restored her with one single grandiose spell. Such was beyond the doings of even Petunia Potsdam, he thought.

He was a wizard, not a saint.

Despite his efforts, he could not stop the wound from bleeding or cool its residual heat. Although the leak of blood was slow, the blood still seeped, dark and wicked. Amoretta's body had become clammy, but the wound still burned as if Damien Ramsey's hand was on her, gripping her flesh.

Grabiner swore again and rubbed his forehead in frustration, his fingers slick against the sweat that had beaded there. He struggled to focus. His emotions were running riot, making it difficult for him to concentrate, which is perhaps why he had neglected such an elementary step.

He threw his arm out over her body and muttered a short blue magic spell and was unsurprised when there was a glow like a ghostlight in her hair.

An active enchantment. There was still an active enchantment on her.

He cast the strongest dispel in his repertoire and was gratified to see the light sputter and then wink out. He grabbed the small trinket between his thumb and his forefinger like a mongoose striking a snake and threw it as hard as he could onto the floor behind him, turning his head to watch it fall. He threw out a hand behind him as it went and cast a sealing spell, so that by the time the small, hard stone struck the ground the light of a rune circle glowed around it, signifying that its effects had been contained.

Only then did he turn his back on it and concentrate on rebuilding the net of green magic he had so recently dispelled. It took spells to stabilize her heartrate and normalize her bloodflow, and spells to restore her homeostasis, spells to dull the pain, spells to cool the burn, and then he was calling for Kavus to bring him antiseptic and a sterile cloth so he could clean the wound. In the end, because it was a curse burn he sealed the livid handprint the same way that he had sealed the small stone. That way, at least, the damage could not spread.

By the time he had finished all of these ministrations, Grabiner was sweating profusely and panting from the effort, leaning forward to brace himself against the edge of the bed with both his hands. He could not have said when he had worked so much powerful magic in such a short span of time. The chaining of spells multiplied the mental fatigue they imparted.

Amoretta's color had improved. Her temperature was now normal and she was no longer sweating profusely. After he had cleaned the wound he had done his best to dry her off, so the moisture on her skin wouldn't trigger another bout of rapid cooling. Fingers against her wrist indicated that her heartrate had stabilized, although it was strangely slow. Her breathing was also very slow, so much so that he had to watch her very carefully to see the slight rise and fall of her chest.

But although the greatest danger seemed to have passed, she was still wispy somehow, insubstantial, like a quickly fading mirage.

With mounting fears Grabiner murmured the words to a spell that would grant him spirit sight, and as the spell took effect he nearly howled in misery and resignation.

While he had succeeded in saving Amoretta's life, her soul was in shambles.

Perhaps it ought to have been the thing he checked for first, considering the wound she bore came from the hand of a demon, but Grabiner had been unwilling to chance saving her soul at the cost of her life. It was his own desperate determination: he would save both her soul and her life, or he would save neither, because one without the other could not stand.

It was as if someone had torn a hole in her soul and all the stuff that was her self was leaking out. It hung in the air like a slender stream of smoke, being siphoned away to an unknown destination. Although he had her there before him, he was losing the girl who was Amoretta Suzerain. She was evaporating before him, her soul torn apart and devoured, just as Violet's had been.

And he had absolutely no idea how to stop it.

It was enough to make him cry violent tears of rage and frustration, sinking down to his knees so he could lay his forehead against the edge of the bed.

A wound of the soul was not something one could simply fix, not even with green magic and fierce determination. The nature of souls was not something well understood by wizards and witches, even by those who studied them extensively. While there were a number of competing theories concerning the essence of the soul, there was no hard truth, no sweeping pattern that explained it all. What they had were a lot of little truths and a lot of apparent behaviors.

A wound of the soul was generally considered a mortal wound, made when a person's psyche, their  _essence_ , was assaulted so violently by an outside force that their will began to collapse. It was not something that magic, modern or ancient, had any understanding of how to fix.

It was as if her death sentence had been handed down to him, and all he could do was accept it, mean and helpless, and stand by in black at her bedside as she slowly ceased to exist.

_She_ _will_ _die_ _,_  he thought bitterly,  _And_ _I_ _will_ _have_ _lost_ _what_ _she_ _is_ _._

Why was it so desperately important for him to save her, this silly idiotic girl that fate had put into his care? He would have worked tirelessly to save the life of anyone injured, because that was the sort of man he was, but he had no illusions about his sentiment, about his emotional connections to others. He kept himself away from them on purpose, but this girl, this girl he had not been able to keep away from himself. Perhaps it was simply the fact that she had been put into his care, but by he now had the creeping knowledge that he would have felt the same dread and rage and despair if she had not been a Grabiner, not been, at least by legal contract, of his own family and flesh.

If Petunia Potsdam had been there, she might have said,  _And_ _that_ _is_ _what_ _makes_ _her_ _your_ _wife_ _,_ _Hieronymous_ _,_ _that_ _you_ _would_ _tear_ _out_ _your_ _heart_ _here_ _if_ _doing_ _so_ _would_ _save_ _her_ _._ _None_ _of_ _the_ _vows_ _before_ _all_ _of_ _heaven_ _and_ _all_ _of_ _the_ _public_ _mean_ _a_ _thing_ _when_ _compared_ _to_ _such_ _a_ _bond_ _,_ _which_ _exists_ _silently_ _,_ _unspoken_ _._

But Petunia Potsdam was not there, and even if she had been, Grabiner would have taken no comfort in her judiciously offered words, as true as they might have been.

There are times when truths are so naked that one cannot bear to look at them.

From the direction of his unguarded back, Grabiner heard a grim pronouncement.

"This's an ugly business," said Rail Finch, who stood in the open doorway to Grabiner's quarters, eyeing the girl who lay pale and feeble in the bed.

Grabiner turned from her bedside immediately, hastily brushing his sleeve across his eyes, and tried to will himself to be calm. It was unusual to see Professor Finch on campus at this hour. Unlike Grabiner and the headmistress, he had a private house in the village. But then, perhaps it was not so unusual on a night like this, with part of the back wall of the main building blown to pieces and the headmistress off hunting demons.

Finch answered Grabiner's question before it could be asked. "Petunia called me in," he said, tapping his staff briskly against the stone floor of the hallway by way of punctuation. "Nasty stuff, all of this. Heard the girl was a good student. Sorry for your loss. Damned shame. Petunia wouldn't let me chase down the filthy monster. Insisted on going herself. Still, she didn't want to leave the campus totally undefended after something like this. I expect she imagined you'd be - " Finch paused as his eyes dwelled weightily on the nearly comatose girl. "Occupied."

Grabiner ran his hand through his hair in frustration. He realized that Finch didn't have a comprehensive understanding of the situation, had no way of knowing what the girl who was slipping away into oblivion meant to him, apart from all the hideously absurd rumors that had circulated through the school over the course of the day. He wasn't really sure what she meant to him himself, but watching her die hurt like having his flesh peeled away from his bones. It was a very present and physical sort of agony. He felt like he was going to vomit.

Grabiner rationally understood that Finch didn't intend to be callous. That was just the way he was: a little brutal, but very efficient, with a cool head and a slow temper, no matter how dire the situation. Grabiner knew all this, but he had no patience for Finch, not now.

He wanted to be alone with his grief.

Alone with his grief and his dying wife.

Every minute Finch loitered in his doorway was another minute that he had lost with the girl who lay dying in his bed.

"Please, Rail," Grabiner said, turning his back on the older man and forcing himself to look long and unblinking at the ghostly pale girl with the black wound on her shoulder. The blood was so dark it looked as if someone had spilled India ink all over her. He could see her life drifting away from him slowly, and as she went, a cardinal element of his own life was lost in the ebbing tide with her. This was the future that stood open in front of him, yawning like the mouth of a grave. He closed his eyes. "I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me," he said.

At first Finch said nothing, and Grabiner could feel the other man's eyes on his back.

Then he grunted.

"As you like," he said. "Got things to see about anyway." He paused. "If you need anything, you can call on me, you know that, don't you, Hieronymous?"

Grabiner looked back at him only briefly, and his gratitude was genuine, but fleeting.

"Yes, Rail," he said very shortly. "Thank you."

Professor Finch grunted again.

"Ugly business," he repeated to the air at Grabiner's back, and then he was gone down the hallway.

Grabiner left Amoretta's bedside only long enough to cross the room and close the door, a vain attempt at shutting out Rail Finch's terrible, honest truth, a vain attempt at shutting out the world that lay outside this last inviolate sanctuary, his chapterhouse hermitage.

He went to sit on the edge of his bed, and without thinking, he moved to cover one of her pale hands with his own.

She was still warm for now, but he knew the warmth would not linger over-long. Her soul would dissipate, and that would be her final death. She would reach brain death before clinical death, but even that would not be long coming. She would be stone dead before morning.

And he could do nothing.

He would have torn his own heart out, there in the dim room surrounded by books, he would have torn it out without hesitation if he thought that might have saved the life of the foolish girl who sat on tabletops instead of in chairs, the girl who made him laugh when he didn't intend to, the girl who was so  _ardent_  in her desire to learn absolutely everything there was to know, the girl who wanted  _him_  to teach her, the girl who tried to take his hand, even when he hadn't offered it.

But of course, such a sacrifice would have little meaning. Tearing his heart out could not mend the soul of -

And then he was on his feet in an instant, as if a bolt of electricity or imagination had lifted him bodily to his feet. What had really lifted him was a slim thread of possibility, the fragment of something he'd read in a book some years past, and as he traced his fingers along the dusty spines of the books on his heavily laden shelves he was grateful as he had never before been grateful that he bothered to keep them in careful order despite their apparent disarray. He found the book he wanted in less than a minute, although he hadn't laid hands on it except by accident in perhaps ten years.

He flipped through the pages with trembling hands, having been driven to nervous anxiety by the adrenaline that had suddenly poured into his veins again, making him taste cold salt on his tongue.

" _Have_ _I_ _not_ _also_ _said_ _that_ _the_ _two_ _thus_ _bound_ _become_ _one_ _creature_ _before_ _destiny_ _,_ _whole_ _and_ _contiguous_ _in_ _their_ _perfection_ _\- "_

His eyes raced to finish the passage, and then he was stumbling toward his desk, laying the book open upon it and throwing a pencil into it to mark the place before returning to the bookshelf and pulling down volume after volume, which he returned to dump on the floor.

He worked only as one who has lived his life among books can work, with terrifying speed and a heedless sort of deliberateness. He worked like a madman, and within fifteen minutes he had no less than fourteen books laid out open on the floor in a half-circle, their places marked with whatever detritus he could pull down from his desk.

He had grasped the theory, now he had to gather the material.

"Kavus!" he yelled without looking up from his books, and the djinni was at his side in a moment. If Kavus was disturbed by either the signs of Grabiner's lunatic endeavor or Amoretta's slowly dissipating essence, he gave no sign, just appeared obediently, looking much the same as usual. Grabiner paid the djinni's disinterest no heed, and instead relayed orders. "I must have a brown dove from the dovecote - one of the Incan doves would be best, and bring me a dozen candles, white tapers made of beeswax."

He already had the vervain dyed chalk and the axes of absolute direction laid out permanently on his floor.

As the djinni disappeared to do as he had been bidden, Grabiner could not help but reflect what grim irony it was that the rarest and most impossible element of the whole business had already been delivered into his hands.

While certainly a strange and extraordinary artifact, it was a thing that would have been considered useless by many: an interesting conversation piece, duly rare and quite remarkable, but surely with no practical value; the unreasonable masterpiece of an obsessed genius.

But for Grabiner at that moment, facing down a future that he refused to accept, it was a treasure without price.

He had the old wooden box that was decorated all over by marquetry pictures out of his chest in a moment, and was thankful that he hadn't buried it deep among past relics and tired clothing out of spite.

Grabiner had looked through the box with cursory interest when he had confiscated it from his young wife in the accounting room, but had quickly shut it up and put it out of the way because he had no use for any of the jewels of the family that his father had been so delighted to bequeath as a wedding present.

But now,  _now_ -

He opened the box, and flipping through it with practiced fingers, found the piece he sought.

There was of course one last necessary element, rarer than even the neglected treasure of the jewel box.

Leaving the box of jewelry open on the floor near the crescent of open books, Hieronymous Grabiner went to wake his unconscious wife.

It took some shaking to get her awake, some shaking he might not have considered trying if he had actually been a licensed medical professional. Still, by repeating her name fiercely and by shaking her as if he wished to shake her apart, one hand cradling her head, he managed to get her awake.

She was slow to rouse. Her eyes opened, but they rolled around unfocused at first before finally settling on his face, which was so close to her own.

"Hieronymous," she greeted weakly. She seemed very distracted, and had a hard time keeping her eyes focused on him.

" _Amoretta_ ," he answered with some emotion. He was trying to keep a tight hold on himself with only partial success. "I am going to ask you a very important question right now, do you understand me?" he asked her seriously, speaking slowly, so it would be easy for her to understand what he said.

Her attention had already wandered, so he shook her gently, so that her eyes focused on him again, and she nodded, seeming a little confused. "I understand," she agreed, then echoed him. "It's important."

It was terrifying to see her like this, so vague and confused and wandering. She was already losing herself.

He took a deep breath and steeled his nerve before speaking again.

"I'm asking you to do something that is very difficult," he told her slowly. "It may fail and you may die," he said, which was true enough. He did not volunteer the information that his life would also be forfeit if he failed. That was not information that she currently required, "But I am afraid it is the only way to save your life. Will you trust me?"

He had to shake her again to elicit an answer. It was an uncertain smile, heartbreaking because it was so listless.

"Of course I trust you," and then her voice stumbled, as if she were struggling to remember something very difficult that kept slipping away from her. She seemed to catch hold of it at last and smiled weakly as she said it, pleased that she had been able to remember what she had lost, if only briefly.

His name.

She had been struggling to remember his name.

During _the act_  of talking to him, she had forgotten his name; she had forgotten who he was.

There wasn't much time now.

"Very well," he said with the grave decision of a judge, "Then we will do this thing."

He left her lying in the bed while he hurried to clear a space on the floor, pushing his desk out of the way and up against one of the shelves. He was racing against time now, racing against her evaporating soul.

"Talk to me, Amoretta," he commanded, even as he got down on his hands and knees to begin laying out a circle in green chalk.

From the bed came the weak protest, "Don't know what," she said, "Don't know what to talk about."

"Talk about anything," he directed, using his classroom voice, so it carried loud and clear and with authority. "Talk about whatever you like."

If he could keep her talking, then he might be able to keep her soul together for longer. If she was actively talking, he hoped her own will would keep her psyche from collapsing.

"Well," she began slowly, "I like you very much."

Ridiculously, he felt his ears turn pink as he tried to concentrate on drawing the angles of the circle using his chalkline.

"That's fine," Grabiner tried to answer her evenly. "What else do you like?"

"Had a cat once," she volunteered, her tone slightly stronger than it had been before. "Liked cat."

"Really?" he asked, focused on chalking straight, even lines, "What was the cat's name?"

"Pumpkinhead," Amoretta answered. "Had a great big orange head, shaped like a pumpkin," she explained. "Aunt Tootie named him. Used to catch mice and rats and voles and leave them in her bed. Was interesting."

"That does sound,  _interesting_ ," Grabiner agreed. "What happened to Pumpkinhead?"

"Run over," Amoretta admitted sadly, and Grabiner could hear her forlorn sigh.

"Amoretta, what is your favorite color?" Grabiner tried desperately to distract her from the memory of the dead cat while he began to fill in the letters and names of the magic circle.

"You," Amoretta answered, and Grabiner momentarily stopped his work, confused by her answer.

"Amoretta," he repeated patiently, "That doesn't make any sense. Think very hard. What is your favorite color?"

"Red," she said definitively, but then she said, "Brown," and seemed conflicted. At last she returned to, "You."

"I'm flattered," he remarked dryly, because he could think of nothing else to say to this revelation.

"You asked," she pointed out, and Grabiner was gratified to find that she sounded a little miffed.

If she could feel anything at all, then that was a good sign.

By the time Grabiner had finished laying out the circle in green chalk, Kavus had returned with the twelve white tapers and the brown dove, who was held captive in a bamboo cage.

Careful not to upset his lines and marks, Grabiner put his desk chair into the center of the circle, because he had no illusions that Amoretta could stand on her own two feet.

When he picked her up to bring her to the circle she seemed more interested in what was going on around her than she had been before, and even hung onto the front of his robe with weak hands.

"What are we doing?" she asked curiously as he deposited her in the chair, making sure that she was propped stably enough so that she wouldn't pitch out of it immediately.

"Making an oath," Grabiner answered honestly, then concentrated on arranging and lighting the candles, which she watched thoughtfully, her eyes following him as he moved about the circle.

"This seems very complicated," she observed as he worked, and he was forced to agree that she was correct.

"Why are you doing it then?" she asked, perplexed.

"Because," he answered absently, "I find the gains worth the trouble."

Finally, all his preparations made, Grabiner at last took the ring from the box at his feet and Amoretta watched in fascination as he twisted it and it came apart in his hands, forming two slender bands of gold, each with the shape of a golden serpent.

"Are we getting married?" she asked, interested.

"We're already married," he reminded, frowning, then he took her hand and leaned down so that he was at eye-level with her and spoke very seriously. "Amoretta, we're about to engage in a ritual that is potentially  _very dangerous_. I need you to follow my directions exactly. You need to do what I tell you to do and say what I tell you to say without asking any questions, do you understand me?"

She insisted that she did, even when he pressed her a second time for confirmation, and so there was nothing else for it. He would act now, or he would never act.

"Kavus," he called, and the djinni appeared close at hand. "See that we are not disturbed," Grabiner directed.

Of who might disturb them on this chaotic night Grabiner had no guesses, but he was unwilling to leave anything up to chance.

The djinni departed to guard the hallway, and Grabiner placed the two rings in Amoretta's lap before bending down to free the caged dove. He caught it gently in one hand and held it against his chest the way a stage magician might, and then he murmured some soft words.

"We are thankful for your sacrifice."

With one swift snap of his wrist he had wrung the dove's neck, much to the shock of his wife, who watched him silently with wide eyes. It took a short knife produced from his pocket only a moment to cut the bird so that its blood stained his fingers. Reaching for her left hand, Grabiner brought it into contact with the warm flesh of the dead bird, and a few drops of blood spattered her fingers as well. Then he leaned down to place the corpse of the bird in the circle at their feet.

Taking one of the rings from her lap, Grabiner began to speak, trying to keep his mind clear and focused on what he meant to do.

"I, Hieronymous Sexton Grabiner, firstborn son of Aloysius Grabiner, having been born thirty two years ago this past October, swear on my blood, on my soul, on my magic, and on my life, by all the binding laws of this world and the Other, that I will not part from this woman for seven times seven lifetimes," here he paused as he took Amoretta's bloodspattered hand and slid the ring on her third finger. It went on easily, as it was obviously too large for her small finger, but then it seemed to shrink to fit snugly. In a low, clear voice, he finished his oath, "If fate shall strike her, so shall I be struck."

Then he leaned down and briefly brushed his lips against the cool metal of the ring. Such was necessary. This was an oath bound by a kiss.

Raising his eyes to her face, he found her flushed and confused, which he did not find surprising. He had not been particularly forthcoming about what he had intended to do, after all.

By motions he indicated that she was now meant to pick up the other ring which lay in her lap, and by murmuring her oath lowly, he coaxed her to say what she was required to say. This was by far the most dangerous part of the ritual, and the one he had bet his life and his soul on: that a girl who had no knowledge of arcane vows, a ravaged soul, and a collapsing sense of self might be able to make the vow of union of her own will.

"I, Marianne Amoretta Grabiner," her voice was unsteady as she started, but as she spoke her uncertainty seemed to fall away, "Born Marianne Amoretta Suzerain sixteen years ago this past September, swear on my blood, on my soul, on my magic, and on my life, under the eye of heaven and witnessed by the audient void, that I will not part from this man for seven times seven lifetimes."

Grabiner gave her his left hand, and she weakly pushed the golden ring over his third knuckle, where it also seemed to shrink to cling to his bony finger like a second skin.

"If fate shall strike him, so shall I be struck," she repeated, swaying unsteadily in the chair as she leaned forward to kiss his ring. He put his hand on her shoulder to steady her, because he worried that she would otherwise fall.

The moment her lips brushed the gleaming metal of the old ring, Amoretta made a sound as if she had suffered a blow to the head, and pitched sideways out of the chair as if she had been violently pushed. Having no conception of what had happened, Grabiner dove to catch her, only to find himself struck with the same overwhelming wave of weakness and disorientation. He managed to get his arms around Amoretta before she hit her head on the floor, but his knees gave way underneath him and they both ended up on the floor in a confused heap, with Amoretta whimpering some word repeatedly, her voice weak, but comforting in its very familiarity.

It was only after some moments of dazed confusion that he managed to understand that she was whimpering his name.

His own voice weak and unsteady, he closed the oath himself.

"And so it is sworn by the blood of the innocent and the will of those involved."

* * *

Amoretta felt like she had been walking for hours through a cave.

She had no light to guide her, but she didn't find the darkness troubling. It was as if she no longer had a body to worry her. The ground underneath her was strange and uneven, but passage over it was easy enough although she could not see. Perhaps the reason she could not see was not because she had no light, but rather because she no longer had any eyes to see with.

In the beginning it hadn't felt much like a cave at all, more like a tunnel. Bright light had been burning up the air at her back, like searchlights sweeping the ground. She squinted as her eyes struggled to transition from the light of day to the state of semi-darkness. That had been when she had still had eyes.

She thought of it now like a cave and not a tunnel because no matter how far she walked, she never seemed to come out the other side. There was no other side at all it seemed, just a quiet, endless journey into nothingness.

The thought didn't make her heart sad.

This was because, she thought, she no longer had a heart.

But then the stones had trembled underneath her feet - the feet that she no longer had - and she had fallen to the ground, rubbing her temples ruefully. As she struggled to make sense of what was happening to her, she realized she was being shaken, she was being shaken insistently, as if Ellen had realized belatedly that they were both tardy for class.

She opened her eyes up with some difficulty and found herself nearly nose to nose with Hieronymous Grabiner.

He was her blue magic Professor. He had given her ten demerits the first time she had ever spoken to him. He could be awfully cross, and was always describing in grisly detail how easy it was for a person to maim themselves irrevocably through the careless use of magic. He didn't approve of loud goings-on. She was not sure he approved of fun. He hated being disturbed. He liked being flattered.

Someone had told her that.

Hieronymous Grabiner liked being flattered.

She was always bothering him. She was always bothering him even though he disliked being bothered because -

Because she loved him.

"Hieronymous?" she asked, and it was a question because while she thought she had  _some_  of the pieces to understand what had happened - what  _was happening_  to her - she had no way of putting them together. She had no knowledge of where to begin.

" _Amoretta_ ," he had answered her intensely and suddenly she could place the first piece.

Marianne Amoretta Suzerain. Her name was Marianne Amoretta Suzerain.

No.

That wasn't right.

Her name was Marianne Amoretta Grabiner.

She had a place to begin.

When he asked questions of her she answered them as obediently as she could, because that was what she thought she ought to do in such a situation. After all, he had told her that he would take care of her. When he asked her whether or not she was willing to trust him, she had not even needed to think about her answer.

Of course.

Of course she trusted him.

And so she had been carried into a chalked circle and placed like a doll in a chair among a dozen lit candles. She had had blood spattered on her hands and had given and taken an oath based purely on faith, with no real understanding of the situation.

It was something she would not have done for anyone else, however well she might have thought of them, but Hieronymous Grabiner she was willing to trust.

And this was how she had come to lie sprawled helplessly on the floor, calling his name repeatedly.

She could not have said why it was, of all the words she might have chosen to say, that it was his name she found herself senselessly repeating like it was a magic spell. Perhaps it was simply because letting it trip over her tongue had been expressly forbidden to her for so long. Perhaps it was because that was the only way to identify as rare and uncertain a beast as her semi-willing Professor husband: by calling him by his given name.

At that moment, it was the word that bounded the edges of her universe. The world began and ended with it.

_Hieronymous_.

It was the only word she had any use for.

It was through the repetition of his name that she really began to come back to herself. It wasn't so much like emerging from a cave as it was coming up from deep water. All at once she burst through the strange membrane between this world and that, between being and nothingness. She had to catch her breath, as if previously she had forgotten even to breathe. It was good to be in the realm of light and sound and laughter again and weakly, she tried to sit up.

His arms came around her suddenly, and held her very still.

"Not yet," Grabiner warned, his own voice shaky. "Give yourself a little time."

Amoretta lay still against his chest, where he had half dragged her in response to her abortive attempt to sit up. It wasn't really what she would have qualified as romantic. She felt as if her bones had been liquefied, she had the beginnings of a headache right between her eyes, and although she couldn't feel it exactly, she had the slow, unavoidable knowledge that something was wrong with her left shoulder, although she was as yet too weak to investigate it. Still, despite all of this, despite the terrible awkward confusion of the situation, it was the closest she had ever been to Grabiner, with or without his consent.

Once he became assured of the fact that she was not going to try to move again in the near future, he released his hold around her middle and instead put one hand on her head. He didn't caress her head, petting her like a kitten, as Damien had done, simply let his hand rest there, cupping the back of her skull. She could feel his heartbeat under her ear, even and steady.

_How_ _is_ _he_ _so_ _calm_ _in_ _this_ _situation_ _?_  Amoretta wondered with confusion.

After some time had passed - queer because it did not seem strange despite the silence that reigned between them - Grabiner grunted and endeavored to sit up, one arm in the small of her back to provide her with support. Amoretta felt like a ragdoll, but with his assistance she managed to sit leaning slightly forward, propped up by her arms which stood as straight as tent poles. The ground around them was littered by overturned candles and marked by smeared chalk lines.

Once he was certain she was relatively safely established sitting on her own, he muttered a spell that she recognized immediately as a conjuration of spectral sight. What he saw with his ghost sight apparently satisfied him, because he seemed relieved.

"Appears to have come off without a hitch then," he observed, and his frank, common manner of speaking was so at odds with his usual decorum that Amoretta almost laughed out loud. In the end, she was more bewildered than amused, and so she asked a question instead of giggling.

"Hieronymous," she asked, making her confusion very plain, "What exactly is going on?"

At her question, his relief turned a bit grim, and while he didn't frown, he didn't look overly excited at explaining the situation.

"Perhaps it would be easiest to understand if you just saw it for yourself," he suggested.

Amoretta bit her lip at this vague reply. She was still feeling rather like she was getting over influenza, limp and weak and a little dizzy. He obviously meant that she ought to cast the spectral sight spell herself, but in her current condition she was unsure that she would be able to do so successfully. Still, his eyes were on her expectantly. Grabiner's gaze was always heavy.

Amoretta swallowed her uncertainty and closed her eyes to concentrate, repeating the arcane words he had so recently spoken. She found the spell flowed out of her more easily than she might have imagined, given the circumstances. Still, she had no conception of what she might see when she opened her eyes. Clearly it was something that visibly relieved Grabiner, but it was also something that troubled him enough that he was not ready to directly admit what it was.

Still, she could not spend the rest of her life in darkness. She would have to open her eyes and hope she did not find herself turned into a pillar of salt.

Although she could not have said what she really expected to see with spirit sight, what she did see -

At first she was unsure of what to look for. She cast her eyes around the room carefully, but it was not until her eyes fell on Hieronymous Grabiner that they settled on anything particularly noteworthy.

And then she had drawn both her hands to her face and nearly toppled over due to lack of support as she cried, "Hieronymous,  _what_ _is_ _wrong_ _with_ _my_ _soul_ _?_ "

"There isn't anything  _wrong_ with it, per se," Grabiner began in a roundabout fashion, refusing to make eye contact with her even as he moved to put one of his arms around her shoulders steadyingly.

"Hieronymous, something is  _obviously_  wrong with it," Amoretta protested, feeling the hysteria building in her heart. Her memories of the evening had a huge disquieting blank in them. She could remember the horrifying pain in the accounting room that had caused her to black out, and she could distinctly remember waking up on the floor of Grabiner's room, but between these two events her memories were hazy at best. And now there was this,  _there_ _was_ _this_ , and Grabiner was obviously trying to allay her fears the same way a counselor will try to allay the fears of a terminal patient. " _I_ _can_ _'_ _t_ _even_ _see_ _it_ _,_ " she cried, her panic obvious.

Calmly, without taking his arm from around her shoulders, Grabiner moved to gesture to the space directly between them with his free hand. Although to the outside observer it might have seemed that he was indicating open space, to those with spectral sight it was clear he was indicating a bright aura that stood between them.

"That is your soul," he said plainly.

"Hieronymous, that is obviously  _your_  soul," Amoretta disagreed, beginning to tremble. She had studied white magic almost devoutly during her early months at school. Although she was still a first year student, she was confident in her basic knowledge of spirits and souls. If she did not have a soul, if she could not  _find_ her soul, obviously she did not have long to live. It was a miracle she was sitting and breathing and talking even now.

But Grabiner's next words stopped her frantic confusion cold.

"That is also correct," is what he said simply and plainly. Then, as she sat there dumbfounded, the silence roaring in her ears, he finally felt obliged to grudgingly explain, "One soul now inhabits two bodies."

As the strange explanation finally penetrated her brain, Amoretta leaned forward and put both her palms on his shoulders, deeply concerned.

"You didn't," she began, troubled, "You didn't give me your soul, did you? That isn't even possible, is it? I don't - I don't understand."

Grabiner was not sure what to do with his wife. She seemed like she was about to burst into hysterical tears and he had no real experience comforting anyone.

Well, he had had experience once.

But that had been a long time ago.

In the end, he elected to deal with her imminent tears the same way he dealt with all her extreme displays of emotion: as a teacher, rather than her husband.

He understood how the one ought to behave, but he had no firm conception of how the other ought to act.

"Amoretta," Grabiner said coolly, taking her hands from his shoulders and putting them back on the floor so she could support herself. "You are correct. I do not believe there is any way for one person to bequeath their soul to another, whatever their intentions. That is not, however, the phenomenon you are witnessing," he said, as if he might have been directing her to observe a lab experiment and not their own very personal situation. "What you are seeing is your soul as much as it is my soul. It is made up of both. That is one of the primary effects of the oath that we took together: a union of souls."

Amoretta swallowed her tears as best she could and tried to get a hold on herself. After a few moments, she took a deep breath and said,

"I think you ought to explain what's going on," she paused and then added, "Slowly. In detail. As if you were going to give me an exam on it."

The request was not unexpected. Now that the gauntlet of horrors had been passed, Grabiner felt very drained, but Amoretta was correct: she deserved an explanation, whether or not he was excited about giving one. He had elected to undertake this extreme course of action himself, and had dragged her along roughshod over difficult terrain.

Now that she was herself again, he had no other alternative but to explain to her how this had come to be true.

"All right," he admitted, getting to his feet. "I'll explain everything."

He pulled her to her feet and then helped her to the bed, where she could sit a little more comfortably than on the floor. Then he proceeded to systematically blow out what remained of the dozen candles that had not been knocked over by their unintentional tumble at the close of the ritual.

_At_ _least_ _we_ _didn_ _'_ _t_ _start_ _a_ _fire_ _,_ Grabiner thought pensively to himself, looking at the candles that  _had_ been knocked over by their struggle.

But at last there was no more avoiding the explanation, so he retired to the bathroom to retrieve his robe, which he offered to her for the sake of modesty, since the top of her uniform had been cut open.

She gratefully wrapped herself in it, shivering, although she left her bloody shoulder exposed. Despite the fact that it had been sealed, the wound had not yet been properly dressed. Grabiner watched her eyes as she looked at it, saw grief and pain flicker through them, but noted that she did not cry, only sniffled. She was trying her best to be brave.

_She_ _must_ _know_ _that_ _even_ _in_ _the_ _best_ _of_ _circumstances_ _,_ _that_ _will_ _be_ _a_ _scar_ _she_ _carries_ _for_ _the_ _rest_ _of_ _her_ _life_ _,_  he thought angrily to himself.  _I_ _will_ _kill_ _Damien_ _Ramsey_ _,_  he resolved to himself again, as if he might have somehow forgotten the vow he had made to himself so recently.  _I_ _will_ _kill_ _him_ _._

Grabiner did not have any illusions that he might have been seeking some sort of justice from the devil boy. He was angry. He wanted to kill Damien Ramsey because that was what the son of a bitch deserved. It was slow, personal hatred. It was wrath, not justice.

_Injure mine and I will cut the difference from your hide,_  he thought to himself.

Grabiner breathed deeply and gathered his thoughts, willing himself to be calm. Then, very carefully and very dispassionately, he laid out the events of the evening, such as they had transpired. She said nothing while he spoke, only listened intently, her hands folded in her lap.

At the end of his explanation, she said only, "You are generous," her face very solemn. She was thinking about things very carefully.

"I am selfish," he protested, scowling, and then leveled an outstretched finger at her in accusation, "Do not believe that anything I have done this evening was done out of a desire for martyrdom. I do nothing out of the goodness of my heart."

Amoretta listened to his angry rebuttal mildly, and at the end answered very seriously, "Of course, Hieronymous," but even he could see that she had lifted one hand to her face to conceal a smile.

Grabiner crossed his arms over his chest and turned his back on her, unwilling to be made a fool of.

_After_ _all_ , he thought grimly,  _If_ _anyone_ _has_ _made_ _a_ _fool_ _of_ _Hieronymous_ _Grabiner_ _tonight_ _,_ _it_ _is_ _Hieronymous_ _Grabiner_ _._

The rashness of his own decisions aside, with Amoretta in something vaguely resembling better health, it was time for Grabiner to demand some answers of his own.

He wheeled on her like a church inquisitor and demanded, "You will now explain your relationship with Damien Ramsey to me."

Amoretta was caught off guard by the sudden command and awkwardly answered, "I explained it all already. Damien is just my friend."

"Was," corrected Grabiner grimly, and Amoretta paled.

"Is he dead?" she asked in a small voice, and would not look at him in the face.

"He will be," Grabiner assured her crisply, then turned his back on her again before continuing brusquely, "The next time I see him. No, I am afraid that Mr. Ramsey is still currently among the living, so far as I know. The headmistress is after him now, but knowing her she means to apprehend him rather than kill him. I have no such mercy in me." He exhaled sharply through his nose again, "I meant only that Mr. Ramsey is presumably no longer your friend, as he attempted, and some might say he very nearly  _succeeded_ , in killing you this evening."

Amoretta's voice was very small as she admitted, "I know."

It made him more angry that she had no hatred for the wretched boy, none that he could see anyway. He gritted his teeth.

"I need you to carefully explain your relationship with Mr. Ramsey to me," Grabiner repeated, struggling to keep himself civil. "I need you to tell me everything that has happened between the two of you since you came to school in September, so I can form an opinion as to why he attacked you this evening."

Grabiner did not care a whit about Damien's private justifications, but if he could understand the logic the demon had employed in making such an attack, then he might be able to ascertain the demon's intentions regarding Amoretta, and therefore anticipate his next action.

When Amoretta remained silent, apparently thinking, Grabiner felt he had no other alternative but to prompt her.

"Did he, for instance," he began, attempting to retain his clinical objectivity, "Ever confess his affections to you?"

He turned to look at her to gauge her response and found her cheeks were flushed.

"He did," Amoretta answered shyly, still keeping her eyes on the floor.

"And you rejected him?" Grabiner prompted and felt his hands reflexively curling into fists.

He wasn't jealous. He was angry. He was angry at her for having been taken in so easily.

She said nothing, so he was forced to draw his own conclusions.

"You did not," he observed, striking one of his heels abruptly against the ground, so it made a sound like a gunshot.

This caused her to look up at him at last and he saw that she was nearly frantic, struggling not to cry.

"Not exactly," she admitted, "I did at first, but then he begged me and I suppose, well, I suppose I felt sorry for him. He didn't have anyone - " she suddenly interrupted herself with an important point, forcefully delivered, "But that was all before we got married. After we got married I made sure that he understood - "

"You told him of our marriage?" Grabiner asked sharply, his temper threatening to rise again like a coiled serpent, but Amoretta was already shaking her head in denial

"He already knew," she explained. "I was really surprised, but the day after our wedding he knew. He said he could see," she flushed again as she finished in a low voice, "He said it was like your hand was on my shoulder."

Grabiner's mouth tightened and he looked away from her. As he looked away, his eyes fell on the thing he had plucked from her hair. It still lay on the floor, the sealing spell hovering over it.

"He gave you that," he said. It was not really a question.

"Right after Christmas vacation," Amoretta admitted, clearly a little uncomfortable.

"And you have been wearing it since?" Grabiner asked, beginning to feel resigned.

"Yes?" she answered uncertainly, as if she were beginning to be unsure what the right answer might be, if it existed at all.

Suddenly he turned to look at her with dark, heavy eyes, his mouth a thin line.

"Do understand what it means for a man to give a woman jewelry?" he asked shortly, his temper barely controlled. "Do you understand what it means for a woman to wear it?"

"I-it's just a hairpin," Amoretta stammered.

"If I had given you that hairpin," Grabiner demanded, "How would you have thought of that gift?"

Amoretta's flush deepened to an unhappy shade of purple and she curled up a little on herself.

"I see you now understand my point," Grabiner noted darkly, turning away from her. "That was a courting present. You accepted it, and you continued to wear it even after your wedding."

"I'm sorry," she stumbled to apologize, "I didn't think of it that way - "

"Don't flatter yourself that you've hurt my feelings," he answered her, and his voice was so keen that it might have slit her skin open. "I am concerned only with what Damien Ramsey may do in the future to endanger you and possibly the rest of the student body."

His sharp words hung in the air for some moments while she continued to awkwardly repeat apologies. In the end he simply shook his head and turned back to her, looking grim.

"There's no reason to apologize," he said and even he realized that he sounded tired. "What's done is done." As if he already suspected her answer, he asked, "Did you ever eat anything he gave to you? Did he ever provide you with food?"

Amoretta nodded slowly, still embarrassed. "He took me to the Glen once." She thought about it, "Oh, and once he brought me a pie that I shared with Ellen and Virginia."

Grabiner rubbed his temples tiredly.

All of that and the mark.

Well that was it then.

He now knew what to expect.

In the end, he really couldn't blame her for anything she'd done. No one had ever taught her how to deal with devils. She was simply too honest and genuine.

"Do you love him?" Grabiner asked her point blank, feeling very old and tired. He didn't really care what her answer might be, as he had already resolved on a course of action. What her answer might do was provide insight into how to deal with her in the future, when it was time to take decisive action.

"No!" she answered with some force, looking on at him as if he had struck her. "No," she repeated, "No, never! Never! I told him that! He knew that!"

"And yet you didn't refuse his confession," Grabiner answered her, his own voice rising.

"Because I was worried about him!" Amoretta insisted, waving her open hands at him as if this might make him accept her explanation. "He didn't have any friends. He was very lonely - "

"Miss Suzerain, might I remind you that no one keeps you on private retainer as their amateur psychiatrist - "

"Hieronymous," she tried.

" - and why you feel the need to attempt to personally mend all the world's ills I will never know, but I am becoming  _physically exhausted_  dealing with your happy indifference to common sense - "

" _Hieronymous_ ," she insisted.

" - and all of it incredibly dangerous, with absolutely no concern for your own well-being and a disregard of consequences that is practically _criminally negligent_. You are hardheaded, stubborn, and  _damnably aggravating_ , the idiotic personification of everything - "

" _Hieronymous_ _,_ " Amoretta yelled at the top of her lungs, " _I_ _love_ _ **you**_ _._ "

" _ **I**_ _ **know**_ _ **that**_ _ **,**_ " Grabiner roared back, his tear finally halted. He leaned against one of the posts of the bed, panting, and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. After a long moment, he explained himself. "That's what makes all of this so difficult. If you did not, it would all be much simpler to deal with."

They were both silent after this admission, and they might have remained so for some time had the djinni not appeared in the room.

"I do not mean to disturb you," Kavus said, "But there are several girls outside in the hallway demanding admittance to this room. I have delayed them successfully for some time now, but I am afraid that they may begin resorting to desperate methods to gain entrance soon enough. I was given the standing order not to cause harm to any student, but I am afraid I must violate it if I am to keep them out."

"Where is Rail at a time like this? Isn't he supposed to be keeping the school in order?" Grabiner groused. "What is it that they want?" he asked, his aggravation naked. "Tell them to return to their rooms. It's after curfew."

"I have told them to do so several times," Kavus answered, the small smile on his mouth an indication he found the current situation amusing, "But seeing as they have already witnessed the wreckage of the accounting room they are understandably reluctant to return to their beds. They seek an audience with the mistress."

Amoretta looked up at that, her cheeks rosy with happiness as opposed to their earlier flame of shame and embarrassment.

"It's Ellen," she guessed, "And Virginia."

"And one called Minnie Cochran," the manus agreed and Amoretta clapped her hands.

"Oh Kavus, let them in, please," Amoretta begged, sitting propped up in bed like an invalid ready to receive visitors for the first time after a long illness.

"As you wish, mistress," Kavus said, and disappeared from the room before Grabiner had time to stop him.

Amoretta did her best to ignore the baleful look Grabiner was giving her as the three obviously distressed girls crowded into the room.

Amoretta was secretly very thankful that Virginia did not rush into the room, throw her finger out at Grabiner, and suggest he had spent the night busily engaged in domestic violence. Instead, although she affixed him with a critical eye, ready for any sign of objectionable behavior, she behaved herself very well.

All three of the girls were worried, and Amoretta found herself buried in a deluge of their questions at first. She answered them as best she could, being careful to remain vague about possibly contentious topics, as Grabiner stood watching her silently, his arms crossed over his chest. At last the girls seemed to be contented with the knowledge that she was all right and their questions slowed a little.

Then Ellen respectfully asked Grabiner when Amoretta might be allowed to go back to her own dorm room.

"Miss Middleton," Grabiner had begun a bit icily, "While I appreciate your concern for Miss Suzerain, I will remind you that she was assaulted violently by Damien Ramsey this evening. I am therefore unwilling to let her out of my sight until the headmistress returns to the campus with news of Mr. Ramsey's whereabouts."

"That is very responsible of you, sir," Ellen answered evenly. Her eyes were already sweeping the room, taking in the disarray of the books spread across the floor, the smudged chalk circle, the dead dove, and the gutted candles.

It was Minnie who spoke up next, looking very much as if she did not want to, but felt she was required to, on her honor. "Professor Grabiner, sir," she said, "I just wanted to apologize - " She broke off and then swallowed audibly. "It came to my attention today that certain remarks I made in confidence to my roommate had become public knowledge. I broke your trust, sir, and for that I am sorry."

Grabiner, who had up until this point been watching the girls without commenting, frowned.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked, although as was common, he didn't sound as if he was begging anyone's pardon, really.

"She's saying that she's the reason everybody knows you and Amoretta are married," Virginia exclaimed, throwing up her hands, "So you can get the crazy idea that Amoretta went around telling everybody about it out of your head!"

"I appreciate your candor, Miss Danson," Grabiner answered, his upper lip curling slightly. "Thank you for explaining a point that I clearly had not understood." His sarcasm was so thick that it fairly dripped off of him and puddled on the floor.

If Virginia cared he was mocking her, she gave no real indication, simply rolled her eyes expressively, which was a common Danson response to Hieronymous Grabiner.

Minnie still stood trembling, awaiting Grabiner's wrath. Although one might have expected that today was not a particularly good day to throw one's self on the mercy of the court of Grabiner, he was not a particularly petty man, and he did not punish the conveniently local for the sins of the distant and escaped. On top of that, he now had much more pressing issues to consider than the fact that his marriage to Amoretta was public knowledge.

Grabiner waved her off, saying, "It is unfortunate that the information became public, Miss Cochran, but now that _it is_  public there is not much to be done about it. I would suggest that in the future, you think carefully about who you keep counsel with. Next time it may be one of your own secrets betrayed."

Minnie flushed and stared at the ground, nodding repeatedly and offering approximately thirty apologies to both Amoretta and Grabiner over the course of three minutes. Amoretta forgave her easily, because although what Minnie had done had caused her a lot of pain, it had all obviously been unintentional on the freshman president's part, and she was positively mortified about it now.

Forgiving people was one of Amoretta's most sublime talents.

When Minnie had quite finished, Virginia put both her hands on her hips and said, "Well?" expectantly, staring directly at Grabiner.

"Well what, Miss Danson?" Grabiner had asked, his brows clouding.

"Aren't you going to even apologize to Amoretta? You should have seen the wreck she was when she came in earlier," Virginia delivered, finally finding a mark for the accusation she'd been saving up.

Amoretta, who understood a large portion of all that Grabiner had done for her that evening, was quick to interject.

"No, no, Virginia," she said, hoping desperately that the other girl would back down, "Professor Grabiner doesn't owe me any apologies. Really, he's done enough - "

"Amoretta," Grabiner cut in decisively, "Do not think that what I did this evening was out of some misplaced sense of guilt. I did not do it because I felt beholden to you. I did not do it because I felt that I had wronged you somehow."

Amoretta swallowed and then answered, "No, sir."

Grabiner closed his eyes wearily and turned his face away from her. "Having said that," he said, "I was wrong to doubt you. Every time I have doubted you I have been wrong. It would seem," he paused, gathering his thoughts, then at last finished, "It would seem that I ought to have learned not to do it by now."

"Now you really ought to tell her how great she is," Virginia suggested.

Grabiner opened his eyes again and gave Virginia a withering look, "Miss Danson, I know this may come as a great surprise to you, but I really do not require your advice on  _how_ _to_ _deal_ _with_ _my_ _wife_ _._ "

He delivered the last words of this statement with some thunder and Virginia was stunned as effectively as if he had hit her with a spell.

Amoretta, still sitting propped up on the bed, flushed madly, her cheeks hot.

It was only the second time Grabiner had ever actively acknowledged that she was his wife before anyone but Petunia Potsdam. It seemed somehow ridiculous that such a thing could make her blush so rosily on a day when so many horrifying and upsetting things had happened, but it did. She was happy. Even badly hurt, even kicked and trodden upon, Grabiner made her happy.

"It's all right, Virginia," Amoretta said sincerely, smiling. "He tells me all the time, in his own way."

"Miss Suzerain, if that is what you are taking away from our conversations - " Grabiner began crossly, but Amoretta had begun to silently tap the ring on her third finger. It was a small movement and it went unnoticed by all but Grabiner.

Feeling utterly ridiculous, he flushed and looked away.

Ellen, Minnie, and Virginia all saw Grabiner flush and cease his tirade. That Amoretta had caused him to blush, even faintly, was one miracle, but that she had somehow managed to get him to stop yelling as well was perhaps the greater miracle.

Grabiner cleared his throat.

"Now, if you young ladies are sufficiently satisfied that Miss Suzerain is in acceptable health and adequate hands, I would appreciate it if you left my rooms, as I am very tired and the hour is now beyond late." He said and snapped his fingers, so that the manus appeared beside him. "Escort these girls back to their dormitory, and please inform any aspiring detectives that anyone caught out of bed tonight will face a mandatory detention with me on the Saturday after spring vacation, as well as a  _healthy_  number of demerits."

When Ellen began to turn green, Grabiner sighed and shook his head.

"Not you three, Miss Middleton. I appreciate your concern for Miss Suzerain," he said. "Your actions in this case are understandable, if perhaps foolhardy. You are lucky that Mr. Ramsey was no longer on campus when you undertook to find Amoretta."

"It wouldn't have mattered if he had been," Ellen answered fiercely. "If Amoretta had been in trouble, and there was something we could have done, we'd have done it, even if it was dangerous. She may be your wife," Ellen said, and her eyes darted around the room nervously, looking anywhere but at Grabiner. Then she seemed to find her conviction and finished strongly, "But she's _our friend_."

"You have to understand," reminded Virginia, tracing her hand across the air in front of her slowly, like she was ascribing a rainbow, "Horses crave adventure."

"Yes," admitted Hieronymous Grabiner grimly, "Of that I am most painfully aware."


	7. Five: What a Brave Man Deserves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "For a brave man deserves a well-endowed girl."
> 
> Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hermann und Dorothea.

After the three girls had reluctantly departed, Amoretta remained propped up on the bed, thoughtfully watching Grabiner as he cleared away the remains of the ritual and restored his room to order. As he was returning the books scattered across the floor one by one to their proper places, Amoretta said,

"Hieronymous, it's very late and I'm sure you're very tired, given everything that's happened. Why not leave the cleaning until tomorrow? I'm sure there will be plenty of time in the morning."

Grabiner looked up from where he was busy with a broom, sweeping the area of his circle clean, and frowned.

"Spoken exactly as one might expect by someone who positively  _excels_  at procrastination," he remarked dryly, "Fortunately I have a little foresight. At the moment, I can do nothing but wait for the return of the headmistress. Until then it is best to use the available time to the greatest possible benefit."

"You're keeping yourself busy," Amoretta observed, "So you won't have to think about things that are upsetting."

Grabiner spared her a sideways glance.

"Astute of you to notice," he said blandly, and then shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said shortly. "You've done nothing to deserve my temper. I am just well aware that I will have to confront many  _upsetting_ things in the morning. I would rather have done with this now."

"I could help you," Amoretta suggested tentatively, biting her lip.

"Don't be ridiculous," Grabiner denied, frowning. "You can barely stand. Just sit there and - " he paused, apparently stumped by what exactly she ought to sit there and do. At last he found a suitable suggestion and finished his imperial decree with some deliberateness, " _Convalesce_."

"Yes, sir," Amoretta agreed a little reluctantly. He was correct in his assertions that she was in no shape to help scrub the floor, the occupation in which he was now engaged, carefully removing all the green chalk lines that had made up the complex form of the oath circle. Amoretta still felt weak and exhausted. She knew she was under the cumulative effects of multiple green magic spells, so her exhaustion was perhaps understandable. Her body was trying very hard to heal itself.

Yet even as a starry-eyed Pollyanna content to while away the evening in the company of the person she liked best in the world, Amoretta was soberly aware that piling a few spells on her would not be enough to reverse the damage Damien had done. Even under the effects of the healing spells she felt disoriented, frightened, and a little sick. Amoretta worried that these ills could not be easily healed with a magic spell and would linger with her, like a chronic ailment. She could think of nothing which might ease the sick, terrified feeling that had been born in her heart the moment Damien's expression had changed so suddenly when she had denied him. Her friend had become something else that evening, something that frightened her because she could not understand him. He had ripped something out of her, stolen something she had meant to keep. The trauma she had experienced during the event had been physically crippling and emotionally scarring, although what Grabiner had done - making the oath of union with her - had done much to calm her terrified heart. It was the reason she could sit relatively still, rather like a normal person, one who had not been violently assaulted recently by a close and trusted friend. But she was a little frightened even now, despite the comforting presence of Grabiner, who was busy at the reassuringly mundane task of scrubbing the floor stone floor spotlessly clean.

But despite what remained of her worry and distress, eventually the fatigue of her body outstripped the fatigue of her heart, and Amoretta commenced yawning.

At first it was only a little yawn, and she managed to cover it with her hand, but soon she was yawning like a large mouthed fish, well aware of the fact that she was being unladylike. Being unladylike was something she did not seem to be able to help. Still, Amoretta fought valiantly to stay awake. Grabiner was sitting up in an all-night vigil, waiting for the return of Petunia Potsdam. The least she could do was keep him company.

When Grabiner looked up at her after dropping his scrub brush in the bucket of cooling water and found her yawning so widely it looked as if she was trying to unhinge her jaw, he sighed.

"Amoretta," he said tiredly, "Please try to get some sleep. There is no reason for you to attempt to stay up on my account. You are obviously exhausted. You need to rest." He paused, and considered before continuing, "I know this is probably not your first choice in sleeping arrangements, but I am unwilling to allow you to return to your room until I have received a report from the headmistress. I can at least reassure you that my bed is not  _infested_ with anything. You ought to be able to sleep as well here as you would in your own room - perhaps better - as that Danson girl is not here to yammer on at all hours."

Amoretta had to wait until she had finished a particularly cavernous yawn to respond a little dazedly, the way one does when one is very tired.

"Oh, I don't mind sleeping in your bed, Hieronymous," she volunteered with the absent frankness that comes from sleep deprivation, "But I feel like if I go to sleep, I'll leave you all alone."

Grabiner chose not to comment on this recent admission, despite the fact that he had baited her into saying it. Why? It was obvious why. He was tired and angry and feeling like a colossal idiot. He was seeking some sort of consolation, a reassurance that the decision that he'd made under pressure had not been a wrong one, that he had not, in his haste, ruined both their lives. Her genuineness, her  _trust_ , he wanted material evidence of it, even as he shied away from it. It was what he wanted to hear, even if it was not what he wanted to hear. Perhaps it was comforting because it was what he had expected her to say. It was  _her_ , in its very essence. He had baited her for a reassurance and he had received one, even if it was not one he was really entirely ready to accept. Such an assurance, he was not sure what to do with it, so he would just ignore it.

It was like fishing for compliments, then hitting the compliment with an oar when it was landed, dumping it back into the lake, and watching with relief as it disappeared.

He had no glib, easy words to ease the situation, to turn her honest admission into a comfortable joke, to make the situation less difficult. He did not really know how to make her laugh, except when he did so accidentally. He had never made a study of what it was that made her smile. He had simply taken it for granted that she would always smile at him.

He could not respond to her gentle, funny reassurance, so instead he answered her worry.

It was something he knew how to do. He had more experience with grief than he did with laughter, after all.

"Thank you for your concern, Amoretta," Grabiner said, and he did not sound crisp and sardonic this time, only very tired. "But I am accustomed to being alone." He meant it to be a statement of sincere gratitude, but his delivery was ineffectual. He had no idea how to conjure warmth and comfort with his words. He simply sounded morose and resigned.

"I know you are," she agreed sleepily, then commenced to ramble as if she were sitting on a fence and counting the sheep as they jumped gaily over, "But just because you're accustomed to it doesn't mean that it makes you happy, or even if it does some of the time, that doesn't mean that it makes you happy all of the time. Sometimes it's nice just being with someone else. Not doing anything. Not talking. Just  _being_."

Grabiner took a long time considering what to say in response to this meandering confession, and at last settled on, "Well, I would have no experience with that, as you never seem to  _cease_ _talking_ _._ "

"Does it really bother you that much?" Amoretta asked in a small voice, and he winced, almost imperceptibly. Across the room, he was sure that she hadn't noticed such a small movement of his body. He had not meant to be cruel to her after she had suffered such cruelty already. The least he owed her was his patience.

Grabiner grunted and turned his back on her before admitting, "No, it does not."

"I'm glad," Amoretta let out an exhausted sigh of relief. "I don't want to cause trouble for you, Hieronymous."

Grabiner turned to look at her over his shoulder appraisingly. "Although it may not be your intention to cause trouble for me, you seem to be singularly good at it, Amoretta," he said. It wasn't an accusation, but simply plain fact.

"I know," she noted glumly. "I'm sorry."

Grabiner waved her off, "You don't have to keep apologizing for it. It seems to be an essential element of your character. It is something, I think, that I have finally come to accept."

"Thank you?" Amoretta asked, doubtful. She wasn't exactly sure that he was paying her a compliment, although he might have been. It was very difficult to tell.

At that, Amoretta found her ears confronted by a strange sound and realized with astonishment that Hieronymous Grabiner was  _laughing_.

It was not a loud, raucous laugh, not a laugh that one might have heard in a tavern as the night turned over into the day. It was not a warm laugh, that sort of free and easy laugh that draws people effortlessly together. It was a quiet laugh, low and private, perhaps a little rusty from disuse. Amoretta could count the number of times she had heard Grabiner laugh before on one hand. Even then it had been a slight noise: a faint chuckle, a snort, a huff through his nose.

They were both exhausted, and the world seemed to be coming apart at the seams, but he was laughing in front of her. To Amoretta it was a miracle equivalent to a Red Sea parting. She flushed a little. This, of course, was the Hieronymous Grabiner no one saw but her: the one that laughed, the one that pouted, the one that had chalked out the lines of a magic circle in a desperate attempt to save her life by giving her something that ought to have only ever belonged to him.

_Of_ _course_ _that_ _'_ _s_ _the_ _sort_ _of_ _man_ _he_ _is_ _,_ she thought to herself.  _It_ _'_ _s_ _so_ _obvious_ _if_ _you_ _only_ _bother_ _to_ _look_ _._

Grabiner, his laughter spent, turned to look at her flushed face with a mouth whose corner was slightly turned down. He was instantly wary.

"I don't want to know what you're thinking about," he warned her flatly.

"I wouldn't tell anyway," Amoretta answered loftily. "It's a secret."

Grabiner gave her a  _look_ , but said nothing other than to excuse himself to the small connected bath, where he proceeded to clean himself up after the chore of scrubbing the floor. He contemplated treating his sore muscles to a hot shower, but then remembered in the nick of time that Amoretta currently had possession of his bathrobe.

_That_ _was certainly_ _a_ _near_ _miss_ _,_ he thought pensively as he returned to his room to retrieve a change of clothing.  _The_ _last_ _thing_ _I_ _need_ _this_ _evening_ _is_ _another_ _awkward close_ _encounter with that girl_ _._

Amoretta observed him carefully as he selected some clothing, but had no comments for him, for which he was thankful. Her silence was a little off-putting, however.

_What_ _is_ _going_ _on_ _in_ _that_ _strange_ _little_ _mind_ _of_ _hers_ _?_ he wondered.  _Given_ _her_ _character_ _,_ _I_ _imagine_ _it_ _is_ _something_ _dubious_ _._

Although Grabiner might have been keen to ascribe dubious thoughts to Amoretta, the truth was more complicated than that, as it often is. While he spent some time in the shower, letting the hot water relax his tired muscles, Amoretta sat in the bed, her knees drawn to her chest, and struggled to stay awake.

When Grabiner returned to the bedroom, toweling dry his hair, he found that Amoretta continued to watch him closely, although her vigil was constantly interrupted by her yawns.

"I told you to go to sleep," Grabiner said, frowning. He frowned so often, it was as if it was the only thing he knew how to do with his mouth. 99.6% of all outside stimuli seemed to cause him to frown in response to it.

Amoretta sniffled, and then helplessly confessed the truth that had been troubling her for some time.

"I'm afraid to go to sleep."

"What?" he asked, honestly surprised, because this confession was unexpected. She had been sitting (relatively) quietly in his bed since the departure of her schoolmates, keeping him company, trying to be friendly. She hadn't complained at all about  _anything_ , hadn't had an ill word to say at him, despite the uncertain revelations he had heaped upon her.

She had seemed calm and sweet and unperturbed, despite her traumatic experience.

But apparently, that had been what she had wanted him to see. The truth was less picturesque, and somehow more captivating because it was not pretty and effortless, but small and mean and human.

_She hides her hurt,_  he thought to himself. _Even from me, she hides it._   _I shall have to watch her more closely._

" _I_ _'_ _m_ _afraid_ _to_ _go_ _to_ _sleep_ ," Amoretta repeated, her voice trembling. "If I go to sleep, then I'll be alone. I'm afraid to be alone right now," her sniffles were becoming more rapid as she slid down the slope into active tears, "I tried to act strong, like I was afraid to leave you alone, but the truth is,  _I_ _'_ _m_ _afraid_ _._ I don't want to be alone. I'm sorry. I'm a bad person," Amoretta apologized as she cried messily into her knees.

She was still sobbing miserably, overcome by all the difficult and complicated events of the day, when she felt a hand awkwardly on her head. It was Grabiner.

"You are at times a trying person," he said, "And you can be a very difficult person, but you are not a bad person," he said honestly. Then he paused and added, "You don't have to be afraid. I won't let anything happen to you."

"I know," Amoretta answered, rubbing the back of her hand across her nose as she made an upsetting snorting noise, " _I know I know I know I know I know._  It's not like I don't trust you. I'm just afraid."

Grabiner had silently pulled open a drawer in the bedside table and fished out a folded handkerchief while she was talking, and he passed it into her hands without comment. She looked at it as if it might have been a holy relic, and clutched it to her chest like it was a security blanket.

"No," Grabiner said patiently. "Blow your nose. You're a mess."

Feeling as if she was soiling an artifact of great price, Amoretta blew her nose awkwardly into the handkerchief while Grabiner patted her head. Her sinuses cleared, she felt a little better.

"If I sat with you," Grabiner spoke slowly, his voice even and calm, "Do you think you might be able to go to sleep?"

Amoretta went wide-eyed at the question, and couldn't help but flush, but managed to stammer out what she hoped was an acceptable response.

"I-I'll try," she promised.

"All right then," Grabiner said. "Move over. I'll sit with you."

Amoretta hastened to comply, moving over to the center of the bed in such a hurry that she tripped herself on the robe and fell face first into the blankets.

Grabiner sighed and shook his head, but made no comment as he went to the bookshelf to select a book that might help him pass the time while she slept. He found one with little difficulty, and then returned to find that Amoretta had mostly righted herself and wriggled under the blankets in the meantime.

"By all means," he remarked dryly, coming to sit on the edge of the bed, "Make yourself at home."

Amoretta stuck her tongue out at him in reply, which was the first time she had ever done such an audacious thing.

To his face, certainly.

"I never fail to be impressed by your manners,  _Lady_ _Halifax_ ," Grabiner said in absent indictment as he got comfortable against the headboard, opening his book and preparing to read.

"You're the one who married me," Amoretta reminded him judiciously, squirming under the blankets to close the space between them.

"A fact I find myself unable to forget -  _Excuse_ _me_ _!"_

This last exclamation came in response to the fact that Amoretta had finally gotten into a comfortable position and laid her cheek against the outside edge of his thigh, near his hipbone. She sighed in contentment, like a puppy who had just successfully put her head into someone's lap.

"Hieronymous, don't make me move," she begged. "I'll be good. I promise. Just let me sit like this. I feel like if I sleep like this, I'll know, even when I'm asleep. I feel like I'll know you're here with me, so I won't be afraid."

She sounded so pitiful, like a small child who is very ill, that Grabiner found he did not have the heart to be cross at her.

"Very well," he said, "But please be aware that I will remove myself entirely from this bed if I feel you are behaving inappropriately."

"Miss Suzerain," Amoretta answered sleepily.

"What?" Grabiner asked, somewhat confused. The girl was clearly brain-addled from sheer exhaustion.

"That's the kind of thing you usually finished with 'Miss Suzerain!' like you're planning on giving me detention," she explained.

"At the moment I have no plans of giving you detention," Grabiner answered levelly.

"Hieronymous, you're so literal," Amoretta giggled, only half awake.

Grabiner found he did not have time to respond to this gentle ribbing before the girl with her head in his lap had fallen completely asleep.

_I_ _hope_ _she_ _doesn_ _'_ _t_ _drool_ _,_ he thought, vaguely worried. It would really be like her, he thought, to drool.

The whole situation was awkward. Regardless of the fact that she was his legal wife, regardless of the fact that they now shared a soul in common, he was not used to being close to people, certainly not physically close to them.

At a loss of what to do with himself Grabiner laid a hand down on her head, as much to reassure himself that she wasn't going to move as to comfort her that he also planned on remaining stationary, despite the fact that he thought that the whole situation ought to be uncomfortable.

The fact that it wasn't actually uncomfortable worried him.

_Is_ _this_ _an_ _unforeseen_ _effect_ _of_ _the_ _soul_ _union_ _?_ he worried to himself as he tried unsuccessfully to read the book he'd brought to bed with him.

If Petunia Potsdam had been there, she would have probably called him an idiot.

Hieronymous Grabiner meant to sit very still and read his book while Amoretta found some peace in sleep. He meant to stay watchful and wakeful until headmistress Petunia Potsdam returned to the campus with either news or Damien Ramsey's body.

He failed on both accounts.

Before he had read even two sentences in the book he had selected on the allegorical significance of the character Reynard the Fox in popular medieval fiction, he had nodded off, sitting up.

The two of them, bloodied, weary, and yet content, slept that way for some time.

* * *

Hieronymous Grabiner was quite asleep, his head tilted slightly back, one of his hands curled in the book that lay open on his lap, the other on top of the head of Amoretta née Suzerain. She was also asleep, sleeping the way that one sleeps when one has been run completely into the ground. It was providence only that kept her from drooling. She was so exhausted that she did not snore.

Their slumber, which otherwise might have continued unbroken for the fanciful span of a hundred years or more, as if they were the sole residents of a vine-overrun castle, was interrupted by the intervention of a good fairy, who twirled lightly into the room on her tiptoes and swept back the heavy curtains that covered the lone window of the room.

Sunshine streamed into the room like air entering a recently opened tomb, and like a reanimated corpse unhappily aroused from his eternal slumber, Hieronymous Grabiner slowly came awake.

"Wake up and hear the news, my turtle doves," came a pert and familiar voice. "I've let you sleep in for half the day."

Grabiner sat up groggily, rubbing his face with the back of his hand. He opened one eye to find Petunia Potsdam standing in the middle of a pool of sunlight, looking bright and genial and not at all as if she had spent the night on a desperate chase after a demon. She looked as clean as a freshly pressed apron, she smelled like a spring garden, and bore a smile that befitted a rosy little putto.

To Grabiner, she was entirely intolerable this early in the morning. He grunted something unintelligible, still rubbing at his eyes. His neck ached, likely because he had slept in such a strange position. He rolled his head around, trying to find some relief, still grumbling.

"I've brought you your morning tea, you cantankerous scoundrel," Professor Potsdam scolded mildly, "So stop growling. It's already midday."

This revelation caused Grabiner to snap awake as if someone had lit a fire under his heels, and he was on his feet before he rightly knew what he was doing with himself. On the bed, Amoretta went face-first into the mattress at the abrupt removal of her bastion of support. This woke her up as effectively as if she had been pummeled with a pillow, and she sat up like a sleepy bird rising from her nest, the borrowed bathrobe she wore slipping down around her waist as she moved.

Upon properly witnessing Amoretta's state, Potsdam began to click her tongue in indictment, "Really, Hieronymous, you ought to have at least bandaged her shoulder."

Looking down at the sheets on the bed, Amoretta realized that what Professor Potsdam had said was true. There were bloodstains in several places along the top hem of the sheet from where it had come into contact with her naked left shoulder. A tentative glance at the wound revealed that it had more or less stopped bleeding during the night, although the curse burn was still an angry red and appeared moist.

Grabiner was in no mood to be criticized over his abilities as a field nurse, which he well knew were not very impressive. He waved her off impatiently.

"Rather than dress her wound poorly, I elected to wait for you to return so that you could dress it properly. With a sealing spell on it, it was at least in no danger of worsening," he retorted, "But never mind that. Tell me about the boy. Did you catch him? Did you bring him back here? Why on earth did you allow me to sleep so long when you knew I was waiting for news - "

Professor Potsdam raised one hand, indicating she wished for silence, that she might explain, and grumbling, Grabiner complied. The first thing she did was indicate a tray, which sat on the floor near the bed. Grabiner had nearly leaped into it in his haste to get to his feet. It was fortunate that he had not, because leaping into hot tea and broth would likely not have improved his mood.

"Cook sent up some tea for you and some hot broth for Amoretta," she explained graciously. "The toast is for you to share. I really expect the both of you must be very hungry, since I'm sure that Hieronymous didn't have the forethought to ask for any food to be sent up last night."

Amoretta flushed a little, waving her own hands as if to ward off the criticisms the headmistress was leveling at her husband.

"I am hungry," she granted, and her stomach growled loudly as if to prove a truth, "But I don't think I could have eaten anything last night. I was too - " she paused awkwardly, "I was too nervous, I guess."

Grabiner, obviously impatient for news that did not concern his breakfast, still brought the plate of toast and the mug of broth to Amoretta before fetching his own mug of tea.

The headmistress raised one eyebrow, the corner of her mouth turning up in a satisfied smile. "Quite a unified front," she observed, apparently pleased. "What a difference one evening makes, eh?"

Grabiner, who was not in a mood to be teased, scowled and barked, " _Get_ _on_ _with_ _it_ _,_ " then he paused and added, in a slightly more subdued tone, "Madam."

Professor Potsdam, apparently unworried by Grabiner's ire, shrugged very meaningfully and began speaking, folding her hands behind her back.

"I suppose I shall begin with the point that Hieronymous finds the most pressing: Damien Ramsey is not currently on the campus of Iris Academy, nor do I expect to see him here again, as I have just this morning renewed the wards on the campus and added quite a few new ones additionally."

Grabiner opened his mouth but Petuna Potsdam indicated she was not yet finished speaking with a light flick of her index finger, and Grabiner remained respectfully silent.

"Furthermore, Damien Ramsey is not currently in the state of Vermont, nor is he in the contiguous United States of America. He, quite unsurprisingly, I might add, fled to the Otherworld. I followed his trail for hours last night, but ultimately gave up the chase when it became apparent that he was going to reach his goal in Duzakh before I caught him. Rather than run straight into an obviously hostile reception of devils whose magnitude I could only guess, I elected to return to the Academy."

Grabiner swore and turned his back on the both of them, taking solace only in the mug of hot tea that Potsdam had delivered to him. Although it was not news that he wanted to hear, he could not take objection to her reasonings or actions. Racing into Duzakh unprepared was suicidal, no matter one's goals and aims.

Amoretta, who was drinking her broth like an obedient child, took the silence after Grabiner's angry oath as a chance to ask a question.

"What is Duzakh?" she wondered aloud.

"A hive of devils," Grabiner spat out in answer, without turning around.

Fortunately, the headmistress seemed more willing to answer Amoretta's question a bit more substantively.

"Duzakh is a particularly dangerous area of this planet's Otherworld," she explained. "It the collective name for a group of loosely allied city-states all ruled by what the residents that the material world identify as devils and demons. You might consider it something like 'the Kingdom of Hell,' where that realm is the realm of the Infernal only, rather than the souls of the dead."

"So he went home," Amoretta observed thoughtfully, and the headmistress answered her with a nod.

"Yes, you could put it that way," Potsdam agreed. "Mr. Ramsey escaped to a stronghold where we have no real way of reaching him. This was clearly his intent. He knew that what he had wrought yesterday would guarantee that he had no safe haven here any longer, so he fled in hopes of escaping reprisal."

"Coward," Grabiner observed bitterly. He still had not turned to look at either of them, as if staring at the back of the door was much more engaging.

"Perhaps," Potsdam answered with a shrug. "Or discretion, depending on your point of view."

Grabiner turned suddenly to give the headmistress a venomous glance, and she raised both her hands in defense.

"Peace, Hieronymous," she attempted to pacify him, "I am not defending Mr. Ramsey, merely observing that he is not to be underestimated."

Grabiner said several words in reply that authorities generally agree are not to be used in the presence of a lady, but Petunia Potsdam ignored him, and he turned back to stare angrily at the old wood of the door.

Amoretta was really at a loss.

"I'm very confused by all of this," she confessed. "I don't really understand why any of it happened. It all seems so sudden, as if Damien just went completely crazy."

Petunia Potsdam frowned briefly before speaking. "Yes, I suppose it does seem that way to you. However, I can say with some certainty that everything that happened yesterday was very well thought out. Mr. Ramsey seems to have been laying contingency plans for much of this year. What happened yesterday was the result of months of work, most of it accomplished entirely under the noses of the authorities of this campus, I am most sorry to admit. I was outfoxed, that is a truth that cannot be denied. Never did I imagine that that boy would be so audacious. That is, of course, one of the reasons he managed to be so successful."

Amoretta bit her lip, uneasy. "But he failed, didn't he? I mean, I thought that what Damien wanted most was to run off with me. Professor Grabiner kept him from doing that," she finished, with a grateful look at Grabiner's back.

The headmistress looked troubled.

"It is true that Mr. Ramsey seems to have been intent on spiriting you away last night, but I don't believe that was really his primary objective, or even a goal he felt was necessary to his success," she said, shaking her head. "Which is why he fled from Hieronymous without much of a fight. The truth is, I think that if you had agreed to go with him, or if he had successfully abducted you from the campus, you would have been an inconvenient hindrance to his primary goal, which was to flee from Iris Academy before his other transgression was discovered."

"Then why," Amoretta's brow wrinkled and she bit her so lip hard that she drew blood. "Why did he ask me to run off with him then? Why did he do all of that? None of it makes sense to me."

"If I had to guess, I would say it was to satisfy his own vanity," the headmistress smiled grimly. "He wanted to know what you would say, even if he did not really care how you answered. He had already decided what he was going to do, and he managed to do it quite successfully."

Amoretta looked down at the mark on her shoulder and paled, tasting salt on her tongue.

"Are you telling me that the reason he came to find me in the accounting room was to do this to me?" she asked, her voice trembling as her eyes swept down to the livid burn. "Are you telling me that he would have done this to me no matter what I had said to him, no matter what I had done?"

The look Petunia Potsdam gave Amoretta was gentle, but pitying.

"Yes, my darling," she said, "That is what I can gather, based on the evidence. If Mr. Ramsey knew he was going to flee to the Otherworld, he was well aware that he could not take you with him. Yours is an immature soul. You would not have lasted a moment in the Otherworld before being devoured, even with Mr. Ramsey's protection."

"Why would he do such a thing to me?" Amoretta asked, uncomprehending. Her stomach had already started to twist itself up in knots. She was beginning to feel very sick.

"To mark you," the headmistress answered simply.

"Mark me for what?" Amoretta demanded, squeezing her eyes tightly shut.

"I have some ideas, but I will refrain from expounding upon them in the hopes they will not be borne out," Petunia Potsdam answered slowly.

"They will be," Grabiner spoke suddenly, his voice low.

Professor Potsdam shrugged helplessly and said, "Only time will tell. Until that time, we shall remain vigilant."

Amoretta had curled up into a little ball on the bed, hugging her knees, her head bowed. Her entire body was tense and clenched and she felt as if she couldn't breathe. She trembled uncontrollably, but she did not cry. She just sat there: frozen and sick and terrified.

Then she felt a hand on her head and heard a low voice repeating some awkward words of comfort.

"It will be all right," Grabiner said, and the weight of his hand on her head was steady. "I told you. I won't let anything happen to you. He'll kill me before he touches you again."

"And then the problem would be moot because she would be dead as well, isn't that right, Hieronymous?" Amoretta heard the headmistress interject with her usual critical precision.

Amoretta's eyes snapped open at this and she swallowed hard.

"What do you mean?" she stuttered, uncertain, looking first from Grabiner and then to the headmistress in confusion. Grabiner was frowning at Petunia Potsdam, but that lady was only regarding him seriously, judgement reserved.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice, Hieronymous?" the headmistress asked dryly and then rolled her eyes upward toward the ceiling. "Never have I met a man more intent on leaping into his trousers with both legs at once. I have every confidence in your capability, Hieronymous, and I knew you would come to some solution, but by Hecate's frilly knickers, what a solution!" Petunia Potsdam sighed audibly and then seemed to come to the resolution that she ought to make the best of things, because when she continued it was with both exasperation and affection. "And I'm certain you decided what ought to be done entirely by yourself and dragged your wife along with you without even explaining anything to her."

"That is - " Professor Grabiner sputtered, obviously incensed.

"Basically correct," Amoretta interjected truthfully, then hastened to add, "He told me it would be dangerous though. I think he did, at least. He asked me to trust him."

Potsdam looked at Grabiner thoughtfully. He had stopped attempting to defend his actions and had contented himself with merely seething in bad temper.

"Hieronymous, be thankful, because providence has delivered you a wife who has the patience of a stone and the faith of a rainbow," Professor Potsdam observed, then she turned her eyes toward Amoretta, who was still curled up in a ball, hugging her knees, although she had relaxed a little since Grabiner had come to stand by her side.

"He explained things after it was done," Amoretta volunteered. "I understand that we share a soul between us now."

The headmistress exhaled through her nose in response and leaned back where she stood, offering both her palms up.

"Which is only a side effect of that ritual," she said. "What numbers did you say when you were making the oath, my darling?"

"Seven?" Amoretta wondered out loud, unsure.

"Only seven?" Petunia Potsdam asked, clicking her tongue as her eyes turned appraisingly to Hieronymous Grabiner.

"Seven times seven," he admitted crossly.

"Forty-nine," laughed the headmistress, apparently unsurprised. "Yes, that sounds more like you."

"I don't understand," Amoretta began uncertainly, her eyes shifting alternately from Grabiner to Potsdam.

"Of course you don't as he hasn't seen fit to tell you yet," Potsdam said with some mild exasperation. "You swore an oath bound by a gimmal ring to spend the next forty-eight of your lifetimes attached to this man. I hope you're fond of him."

Amoretta opened her mouth but no sound came out. At last, she made a squeak.

Grabiner sighed, massaging his temples in frustration.

"This is precisely the reason I found that to be unnecessary information," he explained with some consternation.

"You are a born egotist," the headmistress laughed humorlessly. "Only you would be brazen enough to classify that fact as 'unnecessary information.'"

"I did it to save her life," Grabiner argued, turning to face Potsdam with a rebellious expression.

"Without even considering the fact that maybe she would have preferred dying to spending the next several thousand years in your company - " the headmistress retorted, striking accurately again.

Their argument might have continued unabated had Amoretta not blundered into the middle of it.

"Enough, enough" she cried, and they both fell silent, frowning, while she attempted to get her thoughts in order. "I don't really object," she said shyly, her voice low. "If I'm going to spend several thousand years with anybody, I wouldn't want it to be anyone but Hieronymous."

"That is the constancy of Gibraltar there," Petunia Potsdam remarked, eyeing Grabiner critically. "I hope you realize what you've got, Hieronymous."

"I am tolerably well acquainted with my wife's virtues as well as her faults," he answered decisively and with some temper. "I do not need to have them pointed out to me."

"Stop arguing," Amoretta demanded, losing her own temper as her voice rose. The two professors fell silent again in surprise and she took a deep breath before asking. "I'm really more confused than anything. I didn't know - but I have to assume - is reincarnation real? You said forty-eight lifetimes - "

"Reincarnation is observably true," Professor Potsdam answered, "Although it is exceptional rather than commonplace. Witches and other innately magical creatures may undergo certain ceremonies or permanent enchantments to create a protective membrane around the stuff of eir soul to hold it together when eir physical body hastens from this plane. Then the soul merely has to find another vessel to inhabit, usually that of a newly born child of eir species, one drawing eir first breath. In your case, however, your combined soul would be seeking two vessels, with the requirement that they be near to one another and connected somehow through fate. That is the true purpose of the oath of the gimmal ring: to guarantee that souls will meet again, lifetime after lifetime."

"But I swore the oath - " Grabiner interjected irately.

"For the side effect of the union of souls, so that Amoretta's soul would not be destroyed, yes Hieronymous, I know," the headmistress sighed, sounding somewhat put upon.

Amoretta ignored the both of them, asking, "You said it was the exception rather than the rule. If reincarnation is possible, why doesn't everyone seek it out?"

Petunia Potsdam smiled, amused. "That is another question asked in youth, young Missus Grabiner. The truth is that death is a great freedom. It is the ultimate release from all worries and commitments. It is also the ultimate absolution."

"Absolution in death is no absolution at all!" Amoretta answered sharply, frowning. Her sudden passion surprised all three of them, and she flushed, ducking her head. "I don't think so, anyway."

"You have a magnanimous soul," the headmistress observed thoughtfully, then added wryly, "Which is fortunate. You need such a thing to hope to deal with Hieronymous."

"Can we please not let this discussion devolve into a sideshow exhibiting all my flaws for the amusement of the public?" Grabiner asked irately, his teeth gritted.

"Be at peace, Hieronymous," the headmistress answered. "I meant it in good humor as you well know. You are simply an easy target and we are in need of a little fun this morning." She considered Amoretta again before continuing. "You see, reincarnation means that you carry sins and memories with you when you migrate to your next life. You carry your pain with you. You carry the knowledge of all your past failures with you. You carry your despair. You carry your hungry heart and your unfulfilled dreams. This is too great a burden for many people, my darling. We choose to live instead in a long, glorious instant, like the glimmer of light across water. Even for people who do not choose the path of reincarnation, no life is ever really extinguished in this world. It only changes shape and form. Even when I die, I will continue to live, although perhaps in a thousand different forms instead of one. Life continues," Professor Potsdam explained, drawing a circle in the air with one finger so the form of it shone as a golden thread momentarily for all to see.

Amoretta thought about it very hard, and then said, "I think I see. I mean, not really. I'm not a sage and I know it, but I think I have the beginning of understanding it."

The headmistress smiled at Amoretta's admission of ignorance and then said, "So you see now that Hieronymous took a great deal on himself last night in making that decision for you. Forty-nine lifetimes is a very long time. Although you are bound together, he cannot guarantee you happiness in all those lives."

It was Amoretta's turn to smile wryly, "Nobody can do that," she said.

"I think you were born with an old soul," the headmistress observed. "I thought so from the very first moment I heard you speak. It is one of the reasons I think you are so good for Hieronymous," she said, giving the other professor a sidelong look. "I am afraid he is sometimes like a very small boy."

"I am not going to stand here and - " began the dark-haired professor angrily.

"Be at peace, Hieronymous," this time it was Amoretta's gently offered suggestion, a shy smile turning up the corner of her mouth.

Grabiner scowled at the two women and turned his back on them again.

"I hope now that you might actually tell us the rest of what you discovered, headmistress?" Grabiner asked, sounding deeply aggravated.

Amoretta turned to the headmistress with wondering eyes and found that that indomitable woman looked strangely drawn and tired.

"Yes, I should tell you," she admitted. "It is best that you hear it too, Amoretta, although it will not be pleasant news." Professor Potsdam took a deep breath and then commenced to speak. "This morning," she said, "Upon returning to the academy after my long hunt, I went to the village to seek news. It was then that I discovered the reason behind Mr. Ramsey's hasty flight from the campus. It seems that he led to the death of a young woman yesterday morning. Her body wasn't discovered immediately, which I am sure was his intention. I sent Rail to investigate the scene, and he confirmed most of my suspicions."

"Damien murdered someone?" Amoretta asked, swallowing back cold salt. She knew now that she hadn't really understood his character very well, that he was far more terrifying than he had seemed, but this - Her stomach dropped as she waited for an answer.

"Not exactly," Professor Potsdam answered, and Grabiner snorted, but chose not to comment. "He didn't murder her in the way you might be thinking, but he did cause her death. Mr. Ramsey acted very carefully within the laws of conduct. In some ways what he did would not be considered an offense, or even a breach of etiquette for a devil. He convinced a lonely young girl, one about your age, Amoretta, to sign her soul over to him of her own free will. Of course, when he collected the soul he necessarily ended her life, although he did not lay a hand on her in violence. This seems to have happened in the early morning yesterday."

"Why would he do such a thing?" Amoretta asked, uncomprehending.

"Because he is a damned demon," Grabiner answered, at last losing his temper as he wheeled on them both.

Professor Potsdam ignored his outburst, answering Amoretta's question more thoughtfully.

"As a rite of passage, likely," she said. "Or perhaps only to gain capital. The soul of a young girl, freely given, is very valuable among demons. It is also a sign of strength. It is considered a good omen, I think, to be able to corrupt what is believed to be incorruptible."

"Then with me, he - " Amoretta stammered, but Petunia Potsdam shook her head.

"No, I don't think so," she said, and all at once she became very serious. "You could say that he chose to obtain this girl's soul because he had different intentions for you."

"Then I caused her death," Amoretta realized, and she felt very cold.

"Some people will say that, yes," the headmistress agreed. "So you had best make peace with that sentiment to the best of your ability."

Amoretta shivered, but looked up again as Grabiner returned to her side, clearly furious.

" _That_ _is_ _absurd_ ," he delivered angrily. "The only person responsible for the death of that girl is Damien Ramsey. You might as soon blame Amoretta for the scar on her shoulder - "

"Hieronymous," Professor Potsdam broke in gently, "I am not saying that this is my opinion. I am only saying that it is an opinion that Amoretta must be prepared to face." She smiled a bit wistfully. "You can't protect her from everything you know."

"I can damn well try," Grabiner snapped, putting his hand on Amoretta's head again, as if he were prepared to defend her from countless waves of enemies even now.

When the headmistress laughed this time it was only a chuckle, one that carried the weight of many years.

"You see," she said, "I told you. He really is a better man than he first appears to be."


	8. Six: Pero Con Otro Corazón / But With Another Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I did not suffer looking for you,  
> I knew that you would come,  
> a new woman with what I adore  
> out of the one that I did not adore,  
> with your eyes, your hands, and your mouth  
> but with another heart,  
> who was beside me at dawn  
> as if she had always been there  
> to go on with me forever.
> 
> Pablo Neruda, Tú Venias / You Would Come, Donald D. Walsh translation

After the three of them had discussed matters a little longer - or really Grabiner and Potsdam had discussed matters - while Amoretta listened intently and occasionally asked questions, the headmistress took custody of Amoretta and ejected Grabiner from his rooms.

"You go and busy yourself prowling the halls," she suggested. "Rail is still out somewhere on the grounds, but the students haven't been told anything at all. I daresay they're climbing the walls. It's two days before spring break and they've been cooped up in their rooms all day with no information about what's been going on. Pass the word to them, Hieronymous. We'll have a general assembly at two o'clock, so as to explain things to the student body."

"The less they know of the situation, the better off they'll be," Grabiner had prophesied darkly, but Professor Potsdam had only shaken her head with a slight shrug.

"In this case I will have to disagree with you, Hieronymous," she said, then waved him off with both of her hands as if she might have been shooing away a bad-tempered cat, "Now get on with yourself. You're not going to do any good for yourself or anyone else staying locked up in here and stewing over things. I'll look after Amoretta," Petunia Potsdam reassured him, patting Amoretta gently on the back. "So don't worry about that."

Grabiner had muttered something low in response that while sounding generally unpleasant had apparently been a sound of sullen acceptance, because he departed with only a brief backward glance at Amoretta. She felt his eyes heavily for a moment, could feel the weight of them on her bloody shoulder, but then he turned away, and was gone.

Petunia Potsdam shrugged again after he had disappeared from sight, chuckling fondly, the way one does when one has seen something familiar, rather than hilarious.

"You'll have to forgive Hieronymous if you find him to be in a bad temper for the next few days," she said, placing two fingers against the side of her face thoughtfully. "He's feeling very helpless at the moment because he knows he missed his chance at Damien Ramsey. He very much wants to visit retribution on the boy, you see, for what was done to you. For all his apparent steadiness, Hieronymous can be as impulsive as a lemming and more vindictive than a rattlesnake when his passion is up." She cast a searching, sidelong glance at Amoretta as she spoke, "He wanted to go after Mr. Ramsey last night, but I forbid it. His place was here, with you, and in his heart he knew that, although he did need to be  _gently reminded_." She fixed Amoretta with a very steady look. "You might have wondered already why I left him here to tend you, while I went off chasing Mr. Ramsey. The truth is, my darling, that I had already seen what it was that that young man had done to you. I knew that I had no magics at my disposal that could have mended your soul. The only sort of action that might have saved your life last night was a desperate one, and I have never met a man for desperate actions if it is not Hieronymous Grabiner."

Amoretta cocked her head to the side, thinking. "Then you knew what he'd do?" she asked.

"Oh not really," the headmistress admitted, waving one of her hands to indicate a vague notion, "Not exactly. I knew he would do  _something_ , or rather, I knew he would  _try_ something at least, although I had no conception of what that something might be. I wasn't entirely certain he would be successful," she confessed with a weak smile. "Oh, I know I told him that I had every confidence in him, and I do, but this wasn't a case where a brilliant intellect alone could prevail. When I left the campus last night I was not sure that you would be among the living when I returned, young lady. Of course, I was glad in my heart to find that you were," she said, smiling at Amoretta before turning thoughtful again. "Hieronymous went down deep into the throat of death last night himself, and he dragged you up out of it with his own strength. I cannot say who would do such a thing for me," she admitted soberly. "Hieronymous certainly wouldn't, and I am one of the few remaining whom he might consider a friend," she chuckled briefly again, "Or perhaps a prison warden, or a den mother." She shook her head briefly as she turned her eyes back to Amoretta soberly. "I must be honest, my chicken, I would not have done what he did for you, even if it meant saving your life." Petunia Potsdam smiled again and she seemed strange and ancient. "Hieronymous has always taken his responsibilities very seriously."

Amoretta looked down at the floor. "I feel like I'm just a burden to him," she confessed. "An awfully heavy one, too. I feel like I'm a stone around his neck."

Petunia Potsdam laughed again, friendly and private. "All loved ones are burdens," she explained. "Whenever you love someone, you accept their weight on your back, and you carry them with you. You ought to think of it like this: when you're walking into a strong headwind, you're grateful for all the extra weight you're carrying in your pockets, because this helps keep you from being blown over. It is wise to remember that the man who makes a journey carrying a great weight is much stronger in the end than the man who makes the journey with empty hands and an empty heart."

Amoretta was not entirely convinced, and bit her lip, her eyes dropping to the stone of the floor.

"I feel like I ought to be doing something in return," she worried, her cheeks flushed from the unspoken implication of the headmistress's words.

"You are doing something in return," the headmistress reassured her. "You're doing quite a lot of things, really. You simply don't think of them as remarkable because they're what you would do anyway. That's why you and Hieronymous are good for one another. Neither of you thinks that being kind to the other is anything noteworthy. It is simply  _what is_. You are not particularly concerned with what you can get from Hieronymous, only what you can give to him. That man is much the same way, although he certainly doesn't seem as though he is on the surface." She chuckled wryly. "He's not perfect, my chickadee, but he is worth loving."

At this admission Amoretta turned an upsetting shade of mauve and asked awkwardly, "Professor Potsdam, do you - "

The headmistress laughed again, and this time it was a hearty laugh from deep in her chest.

"I love everybody," she confided with a wink, "To a greater or lesser degree."

The way she said it, with pure and simple happiness, drove Amoretta's doubts away.

"You must have an enormous heart," Amoretta observed with awe.

"Not particularly," the headmistress answered with a smile, and then placed her own hand on Amoretta's chest. "I think it's about the same size as yours," she said, then she linked one arm through Amoretta's, "But enough talking. I must get you cleaned up. It is clear to me that I should leave Hieronymous in charge of the frail and infirm  _at my own peril._ "

And with that, Petunia Potsdam bustled Amoretta out of the room.

* * *

A short time later, Amoretta found herself nearly naked in the headmistress's bathroom for the second time in her life.

"What you need is a good scrubbing," Petunia Potsdam had opined. "It always makes the body feel worlds better."

So Amoretta stood with feet bare on the cool tile of the bathroom, while the headmistress bustled about piling all manner of bottles, boxes, and brushes in the floor in front of her.

It was a nice bathroom, and Amoretta liked it. The floor was done in hand painted white tile figured over with the forms of pink tulips with vibrantly green stems. There was a pedestal sink and the cutest little toilet she had ever seen. Amoretta could not have imagined calling any other toilet in the world 'cute,' but Petunia Potsdam's was somehow as appealing as a basket full of yarn and kittens. It had a friendly wooden seat worn smooth by use and the lid was covered with an embroidered slip that featured a beautiful pastoral scene complete with a winsome and dainty shepherdess. The toilet was  _adorable_.

The bathroom was quite frilly and feminine, and smelled of fresh flowers, rather than cleaning solvent. There  _were_ fresh flowers on the sill: a small terracotta pot of pink rosebuds. It was the sort of bathroom where one expected that each and every object would be covered by it's own pretty little cozy, and nearly everything was.

Amoretta even noticed some of the pink peppermint candles she had sold at the autumn fundraiser in a delicate china dish on top of the wooden towel cabinet.

It really was the bathroom of a fairytale princess who lived her life at the top of her tower, and spent all her time washing and braiding her hair.

Amoretta was still ruminating on the royal nature of the headmistress's bathroom when that lady swept back the ruffled pink curtain at one end of the room and revealed an enormous clawfoot bathtub. The bathtub was so impressive in its grandiose loveliness and scale, Amoretta could not help but wonder if the headmistress had actually stolen it from a palace somewhere. Four people might have bathed in it comfortably at one time and still had room to luxuriate in bubbles or bath oil. The faucets were golden and had been cast in the shape of dolphins and lace-finned fish. Amoretta could not imagine how much the ornate bathtub weighed, but she was fairly certain that it weighed enough that it ought not to be on the second floor of a building.

_If I climb into it, I'm sure it will go crashing through the floor and there I'll be, naked in a fancy bathtub, right in the middle of the main hallway downstairs,_ she worried. She really didn't want that to be written under her name in the yearbook: 'spotted naked in a fancy bathtub, right in the middle of the main hallway.'

The headmistress apparently found Amoretta's open-mouthed awe pleasing because she smiled with some enthusiasm.

"A lady must always have a few luxuries, my darling," she said, "And I must admit, bathing is one of mine." She clicked her tongue. "But first things first: I'm going to clean and dress the wound on your shoulder. I'm also going to get you out of this camisole. I'm going to have to cut it off, " she said, "I'm afraid it's well stuck to you from all the blood and fluid."

Amoretta nodded. She couldn't really imagine getting the camisole off any other way. It felt like it was glued to her body. As the headmistress readied her scissors, a thought occurred to Amoretta and she interrupted Petunia Potsdam before she could start.

"Kavus?" she asked tentatively.

At her word the blue djinni materialized in the bathroom with them.

"I knew it!" Amoretta cried, stamping her foot. "Kavus, please wait outside the bathroom. I don't need to be watched while I bathe."

The djinn gave a slight and gracious bow but then said, "I am sorry, but I cannot do as you wish, mistress. The master was very specific. I am not to leave your side for any reason, no matter what your thoughts may be."

"Not even when I bathe or go to the toilet?" Amoretta demanded, turning pink again. "That's an invasion of privacy!"

"If it will put your mind at ease, mistress, it is nothing I have not already seen," the djinni replied mildly, his slight, familiar smile in place. He was clearly enjoying himself again.

Amoretta paled, which is somewhat difficult for a girl with skin the color of chalk, but pale she did, because she was  _distressed_.

"What exactly do you mean by that?" she asked, dreading his answer with the sort of ominous prescience that comes when one already knows the answer to the question one has asked, but is hoping against hope for an answer to the contrary.

"Only that I have been watching you since the date of January 26th, by your reckoning. Since that time you have bathed yourself and gone to the toilet any number of times. I have been there on every occasion," he explained simply.

"KAVUS!" Amoretta shrieked in dismay, but the headmistress was soon comforting her.

"There's nothing to be upset about, my duckling. The djinni has merely observed you during some very human activities. There is nothing shameful about bathing or using the toilet. Everyone does it, even that terrible husband of yours," she reminded. "Anyway, I'm afraid that learning to go about your regular business despite who might be watching is just something you're going to have to get accustomed to in the witch world. You're never really alone, wherever you go. The world is positively filled to the brim with spirits and with things that live." She paused and then gestured to the adorable toilet in sudden inspiration, "Why, even that toilet is covered with lots of little microorganisms. They keep you company every time you use it!"

"Oh," said Amoretta, feeling a little faint, her face still flushed. "Well. That's interesting. I suppose I've never thought of it that way."

"Hieronymous is far too paranoid to leave you up to your own devices, my darling, certainly not after such an unpleasant incident," Petunia Potsdam explained, and then proceeded to snip off the camisole while Amoretta was standing motionless, still stunned from the headmistress's genial revelation. "Not even when you're in my care. He is a very strange combination of ridiculously careful and ridiculously impetuous. If I were you, I should accept sir manus as my bosom companion. If at first you find yourself in a situation that doesn't suit you, just turn around your point of reference until it does."

"Are you suggesting I just make believe whatever I like?" Amoretta asked blankly as the headmistress began systematically cleaning and bandaging the curse-burned handprint.

"Yes indeed, my duckling. That is exactly what I'm suggesting," the headmistress sang back, busy at work. "It is a trick I employ all the time!"

"But aren't you just hiding from the truth then?" Amoretta asked, worried.

"The truth is what you make of it," the headmistress announced. "And it really has no meaning other than what you find in it personally."

"But I believe - " Amoretta began with some passion.

"That's good!" chirped the headmistress, finishing with the bandaging and quickly enchanting wrappings with a brief trace of her fingers so that they would be waterproof, and thus survive the bath. "You ought to believe what you want to believe. Believe it with all your heart. That's your truth, and I'm sure it's a splendid one."

Amoretta found herself stripped of her panties and shooed into the bathtub, where the headmistress commenced to run a tub full of water into which she mixed bath salts and several things from the various bottles she'd brought to the side of the bath. Amoretta sat pensively in the back of the tub as the water crept up around her, hugging her knees.

"Are you saying that everything in the world is subjective?" she asked uncertainly.

"The only thing absolute in this universe is the fact that nothing is absolute," quoth the headmistress.

"But if that's true, then the statement that 'nothing is absolute' isn't absolute either," Amoretta complained, frowning.

"Exactly," answered the headmistress, pleased.

"This is all horribly complicated," Amoretta cried, throwing her arms up in the air in frustration.

"It is," the headmistress agreed, tapping Amoretta playfully on the nose with a forefinger, "Which is what makes it so interesting."

"That's your answer for everything," Amoretta grumped. "Sometimes I feel like the only reason your answers seems so impressive and wise is that I can't see 'the man behind the curtain.'"

"Darling, I  _am_ 'the man behind the curtain,'" Petunia Potsdam laughed, and Amoretta found that she had nothing to say to that.

Whether or not she was fully satisfied with the headmistress's explanation of the universe, Amoretta did discover, as that lady commenced to scrub her clean (despite her protests that she could wash her own self perfectly well), that she was no longer embarrassed that the djinni was in the room with them. He had made himself invisible again during their discussion, but Amoretta knew that he hadn't left. He was still there, watching her get washed and scrubbed, and she found that she really no longer cared.

It really didn't seem to matter much in the final accounting of things.

_Perhaps that was her whole purpose,_ Amoretta thought to herself.  _To help me to understand that whether or not someone watches you bathe is really a question of little consequence._

Petunia Potsdam hummed as she scrubbed Amoretta. She hummed a lot of catchy songs that Amoretta could not place, although some of them sounded familiar. As she hummed and hummed and scrubbed and scrubbed, Amoretta realized that at least one of the things the headmistress had said had been true: being bathed was a rare comfort.

After the headmistress had scrubbed every inch of Amoretta's skin, including her scalp, she wet down her hair under the faucet and then dumped something thick and sweet-smelling into it. Then she helped Amoretta out of the bath and wrapped her in a fluffy robe, bundling the great length of her sopping, strangely smelling hair into a shower cap.

"We'll have to wait awhile for that," the headmistress advised, indicating the stuff she had squelched into Amoretta's hair. "Until then, have a seat," she suggested, gesturing to the adorable toilet. She herself sat down on the lip of the tub and considered carefully before speaking. "I have quite a few things to tell you, so I suppose I ought to begin. You've been through quite a lot recently, and I have half a mind to think that your reputed luck has something to do with it."

Amoretta made a troubled face and thought of what she might say, but the headmistress was already waving a hand to dismiss her earlier statement.

"Oh, please don't think I'm making light of your situation or your suffering. I can't really say I think it's lucky that you were attacked by Mr. Ramsey, but it is certainly very lucky that you lived," she said, her thumb pressed thoughtfully against her lips. "Things continue to keep turning out in your favor, in one way or another."

"Do they really?" Amoretta asked soberly. It was hard to imagine the events of the previous night in the context of good fortune.

"Last night a hole was torn in your soul beyond mending," the headmistress explained her thinking, "One of the only things that might have saved you was the union of souls which Hieronymous performed. A necessary component of that ritual is a gimmal ring, of which there are perhaps a dozen in the world. One of the most exquisite gimmal rings in existence just happened to already be in Hieronymous Grabiner's possession. It came into his hands a little over a week before he needed to make use of it. That is what I would qualify as  _considerable fortune._ "

"Isn't the saying 'Providence helps those who help themselves?'" Amoretta asked, although she didn't sound particularly confident. The way the headmistress put it, it all sounded very far-fetched and she knew it.

"Perhaps," the headmistress agreed thoughtfully. "I will have to think about it carefully." Then she seemed to put that line of inquiry away entirely because she smiled again maternally. "Now then," she said brightly, "I ought to tell you a little about what you can expect from the union of souls, since I am sure this is also what Hieronymous considers 'unnecessary information.'"

The last two words Petunia Potsdam delivered in such a perfect impression of Hieronymous Grabiner, complete with characteristic scowl, that Amoretta could not help but laugh, her own worries pushed from her mind.

"First of all, I suppose I ought to tell you what it's not," the headmistress said, raising one finger in the air, as if to illustrate her point. "Don't expect it to be some sort of magical key to that dreadful man's heart. The union of souls is built on the feelings of a  _pre-existing_  bond. It doesn't manufacture any feelings whole cloth. It doesn't even  _enhance_ any feelings. That'd be like mind-control, don't you think?" the headmistress laughed. "What I mean to say is that you shouldn't expect Hieronymous to treat you any differently just because you've got a common soul now. If he does, that's his business, but it's certainly not because of the oath. If you find yourself thinking better of him than you had before, be confident that that's your own heart talking, and not any machinations of hidden magic." She leaned back a little and laced her fingers together, "You see, that's one element of conceit in the union of souls, or you might consider it instead a  _raison d'etre_ \- the oath assumes your personal bond in strong enough to stand up to the trials and difficulties of life all by itself. If you couldn't manage it for one lifetime, how on earth could you hope to keep at it for a dozen or more? So don't expect that oath to make him love you."

"I wouldn't," began Amoretta uncertainly, her eyes on the patterned tile of the floor. "I wouldn't want that anyway. It would be nice if - I mean, of course it would make me happy, but - not if he  _didn't_ \- I mean, not if it wasn't what he wanted - "

"You  _are_ adorable," Professor Potsdam interrupted Amoretta's ramblings. "Of course you don't, because that's the sort of person you are. You are wise enough to realize that love is a thing that is freely given, not taken, and certainly not stolen." She paused in consideration before continuing, "So I can say with some certainty that your union of souls will not grant you secret access to any parts of himself that he chooses to keep hidden from you. Likewise, he will have no ability to paw through your secrets. If there is something that you want to tell Hieronymous, or something that you think he ought to know, then you should tell him the old fashioned way, as that's the surest way to be certain that he understands what you mean him to understand."

Amoretta thought about what she had said for a moment, and then said, "I suppose that's not really what I expected. As a first year student I've already learned white magic that'll let me sense emotions and send and receive thoughts. I guess I assumed that the union of souls would provide similar effects. So, even though we share the same soul, I won't necessarily be able to understand Professor Grabiner any better than I did before?"

The corner of the headmistress's mouth quirked up and she nodded. "That is correct," she said, "As I mentioned before, that is the conceit of the oath on the gimmal ring. It would seem that the original oath-takers considered using magical empathetic and communicative effects to be gauche, and therefore did not weave any into the binding of the oath. What the oath does is bring about the union of souls so that the oath-takers may be joined through a specified number of lifetimes, not really anything more than that, although that in itself is an accomplishment bordering on the level of a Great Mystery."

"A Great Mystery is an arcane event or occurrence so prodigious that it appears to be  _magic_ even to those in the witch world," Amoretta replied automatically, without thinking, as if she might have been sitting in one of Potsdam's classes.

The headmistress clapped her hands in pleasure, "Just so!" she agreed. "The gimmal oath is remarkable because it affects soul transmigration not just once, but multiple times. To cause any lasting effect on a soul at all is a very remarkable magical happening, so you can see why causing souls to be linked lifetime after lifetime is something akin to a Great Mystery." The headmistress raised a finger again, "It takes considerable skill to create the oath-circle for that ritual. I can't think of many people other than Hieronymous Grabiner who could have done it in such a short time and under such pressure. More of your impressive luck, my darling."

Amoretta flushed and looked at her bare feet. She sat there wriggling her toes.

The headmistress was still talking, "Gimmal ring oaths are of variable length depending on the power of the gimmal ring employed. Only a very fine ring can guarantee an oath made for more than a dozen lifetimes. It just so happens that the Grabiner family claims as a family treasure one of the most exquisite gimmal rings ever made. I know this because I keep myself  _well informed,_ " she said, smiling mysteriously. Then she added very seriously, "So far as I know, seven times seven - forty-nine lifetimes - is the maximum the gimmal oath can bind. As you know by now, Hieronymous doesn't do anything by half measures."

Amoretta was a little troubled. "Why so long? I know that Professor Grabiner made the oath with me to heal the hole in my soul, so wouldn't an oath of even two or three lifetimes have been enough to create the union of souls?"

Petunia Potsdam gave a slight shrug and said, "I cannot claim to understand the intricacies of Hieronymous's mind, but if I had to guess, and I was betting money on my guess, I would say that he made the bond for forty-nine lifetimes so he would have time to figure out how to mend your soul in the meantime. You see, once your forty-nine lifetimes are up, the union of souls will dissolve, and your soul and Hieronymous's soul will become independent entities again. There have been historical incidences of this, by the way, of gimmal oaths running their course. There is at least one instance, I think, of the two individuals making a new oath with one another. In any case, when your soul inevitably separates from his, no matter how far in the unknown future that may be, it will still be wounded and near collapse. The union of souls is what you might consider a stop-gap measure - funny to think of, isn't it? A stop-gap measure that lasts for forty-nine lifetimes. Only among witches!" she laughed. Then the headmistress offered a palm up to Amoretta, saying, "Hieronymous is very, very cautious. He well knows that magic with the power to mend a hole in a soul may very well be a Great Mystery itself, so he left himself plenty of time to research it." She smiled again fondly. "You see, he doesn't believe that simply  _buying you time_  is an acceptable response to the situation. For him, the union of souls wasn't a solution, but merely a means to an end. He believes it is his responsibility to see you well and whole again. Only then will he consider dissolving your relationship. He's very responsible and generally very practical, although," she made a slight noise of amusement, "I think he may find untangling himself from you even more difficult than solving a Great Mystery, when the time comes."

"Forty-nine lifetimes," Amoretta stammered, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Hieronymous Grabiner was planning not just for the next year, or the next ten years, or the next twenty years, but apparently for the next twenty lifetimes at least.

"He really is a preposterous man," the headmistress agreed, rolling her eyes.

"But why me? I'm just - " Amoretta was flushing again and staring at her feet.

She honestly couldn't say why Grabiner had done what he had done for her. He had taken so many burdens onto himself on her account and gotten nothing but trouble in return. Petunia Potsdam had said it herself: he had paid a price to save her life, a price so steep that no one in their right mind would have paid it. In the span of a few minutes he had decided to commit the long horizon of his future to her, not one future, but dozens of futures, year after year, tomorrow after tomorrow. If he had done it simply because he felt he  _owed_ it to her, because she had stupidly blundered into his summoning circle and he had been forced to marry her to save her life, then she wasn't sure she would ever be able to forgive herself.

She loved him, and she had loved him for a long time, but if he had tied himself to her permanently only out of a sense of  _duty_ -

Then she had ruined his life.

She had ruined his life with her own stupid, foolish desire to be kind to him.

He had not asked for her, and she knew it.

She felt a little sick to her stomach.

The headmistress was watching her intently. Amoretta had no conception of how the difficult emotions played across her face, but Petunia Potsdam read her troubles easily and smiled sympathetically.

"Partially circumstances:  _because_  you were in trouble," she admitted. "Hieronymous is a  _complete sucker_ for anyone who is in trouble. And there is another reason," Petunia Potsdam said gently, "You suit him. He's fond of you."

"Oh," Amoretta muttered, feeling light-headed as she focused her eyes on her small toes. They looked like little pearls, or the buds of unopened flowers. "Well, I - Well. I was thinking, I mean really, I was hoping that he might be, you know,  _a little_ \- "

"Did you know that it is friends who swear oaths on gimmal rings more often than it is lovers?" Petunia Potsdam asked, and there it was, her critical, accurate lash strike.

Amoretta's flushed mumblings stopped immediately and she looked up, startled. "Is that so?" she asked.

"Indeed," the headmistress confirmed, nodding. "Perhaps there are few lovers who are brave enough to risk that their bond is strong enough to weather such turmoil and hardship, or perhaps it is simply difficult for a body to imagine devoting themselves romantically to another person for lifetime after lifetime. Bosom friends and blood brothers and sisters more commonly take the gimmal oath than do lovers. It is a simple truth."

Amoretta bit her lip and looked down at the ground. That was it then. That explained much of what Grabiner had done and why he had been willing to do it. The gimmal oath might be an oath of love, but it was not the love she had been searching for: the candle in a dark room, the comfort of a silent presence, the love that brings definition to life. Instead, the love of the gimmal oath was the love of fealty and friendship. The gimmal oath was an oath among friends, or in this case, an oath between a guardian and charge. She was no less grateful to Hieronymous Grabiner for what he had done for her, but her heart felt weaker.

She was not sure of what she ought to do, of how she ought to feel.

_I'm an idiot,_ Amoretta thought to herself, and took a deep breath and held it in as she struggled not to cry.  _What a completely silly idiot I am. How could I ever begin to imagine that -_

She wanted him to love her - to love her personally and privately and overwhelmingly - and certainly, he did not. He probably never would, and it was absurd for her to have hoped he might, even for a moment.

She was just a girl in school, a girl with bruised knees, abnormally short for her age, small and spindly and as flat as a washboard. She was clumsy, rather than elegant, a strange and eccentric girl who was often mistaken as being even younger than she was due to her childish enthusiasm for the world. She was not the sort of person that anyone would choose for a lover.

She took another deep breath and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She would have to be content with what he was willing to give. She couldn't expect -

"When the gimmal oath is made between friends, the ring is worn on the first finger," the headmistress said very simply. "Even in your next lifetime, and the one after that, although you will no longer have the ring in your possession, it leaves a mark. You'll have a mark on your finger in your next life, and in all the lives after that. It will look like a birthmark, or a scar. It's the mark of the gimmal ring, and everyone who sees it will know you are already bound. I have seen them on the fingers of witches and wizards myself, although they are quite uncommon, as you might imagine."

Amoretta had begun to hiccup uncontrollably from the effort of holding her breath while trying not to cry. Uncomprehending, she looked at her own hands, and then confused, she looked back to the headmistress, seeking answers.

"Yes, my darling," Petunia Potsdam smiled a little wistfully. "You have now realized it yourself. Hieronymous made the oath of lovers over the gimmal ring with you. I can't say why he did such a thing really, or rather, I  _might_ say, but I think I  _won't_ , not at the moment at any rate. Instead, I will say this: he did it that way because that was the way that  _seemed right_  to him at the time. Hieronymous acts quite often based purely on his instincts. The results are - well -  _variable_ ," she chuckled, shaking her head, as if she found Hieronymous Grabiner to be a precious little scamp.

Amoretta looked soberly down at the slender band of gold on her third finger. Its mate was on the third finger of the difficult professor, who was prowling the halls and likely handing out demerits. Neither could be a whole thing without the other. She took several deep breaths and slowly began to calm down.

"You'll likely be wearing that ring for thousands of years, Amoretta," the headmistress said very seriously, her tone almost chilling. "When the metal is gone, it will simply be a ring made of your own flesh. The oath on the gimmal ring doesn't guarantee happiness. The only thing it guarantees is fates that are bound to one another. That can mean despair and suffering as easily as it can mean happiness - more easily, really. There are a hundred thousand things that can happen to drive lovers apart. You may find yourself married to someone else quite against your will, or perhaps a relationship will be forbidden between the two of you because of the circumstances of your birth. Fate can be very cruel. But mark my words, Amoretta: whatever circumstances are, no matter how difficult or insane they may be, your soul will yearn for his because they are two halves of one part. They can't bear to be separated. That is the weight of the gimmal oath. That is the weight of the feelings that already stood between the two of you, existing as a sort of potential emotional energy. You're fatemates now. If he dies, you will die. If you should die, he will also die: for one cannot live without the other. That is what the oath of the gimmal ring means, and why few take it: much is demanded, and the sole reward may end up being misery and suffering. The people that do take the oath stand by their own truth: that being parted from the one that they love is the greatest pain of all."

Amoretta trembled, because as the elder witch spoke she sounded very much like an ancient fairy delivering prophecies. But then the strange, terrible mood was broken as the headmistress smiled wryly.

"Some say that only a madman makes an oath on a gimmal ring, and perhaps that's true. You may well be the object of Hieronymous's insanity," Petunia Potsdam chuckled.

Amoretta, having finally recovered from her extreme emotional distress, puffed out her cheeks and blew air out between her lips in a pout.

"I don't think that's very funny!" Amoretta announced, and the headmistress laughed again.

"Of course you wouldn't," she chortled. "The joke's on you!"

Amoretta continued to pout, and the headmistress gave her another smile before her face turned thoughtful and serious again.

"There is something else I need to tell you, my darling," She took a deep breath, considered, and then said, "You aren't the first girl that Hieronymous has loved."

"Headmistress!" Amoretta squeaked, flushing.

She still couldn't even  _think_ it to herself, not calmly, and then to hear the headmistress say it so nonchalantly -

"Petunia," she corrected.

"Petunia," Amoretta nervously repeated, "He hasn't said - "

"Of course he hasn't," the headmistress said, as if such a thing were entirely beside the point. She apparently thought it was. "And don't expect him to for a while yet. It's a good thing you've got a patient soul, my darling girl, because that man is more obstinate than quick drying cement. But it's plain for anyone with eyes that he loves you," she said with some certainty. "You just have to know how to look. He probably doesn't know it himself, yet, because he's an idiot."

"Headmistress - " Amoretta began, feeling awfully awkward talking about her husband when he was not there to defend himself.

"Petunia," she reminded.

"Petunia," Amoretta agreed. "I don't think - "

"All right, all right, Amoretta. Now I've riled you up like a proper mother hen. You may not think he's an idiot," she said placatingly, "But I know for certain that he is. That doesn't make him a terrible man, it just makes him a difficult one."

"That I'm prepared for," Amoretta said, taking a deep breath.

"I counted on it," the headmistress revealed with some amusement, then she sobered again. "I meant what I said, Amoretta. There's something I ought to tell you about the past, something that happened when Hieronymous was only a little older than you are now."

Amoretta's gaze dropped to the floor and when she began speaking it was only haltingly. "Headmistress, I - I'm not sure - I mean, if they're Hieronymous's secrets, I think I ought to wait until he's ready to tell me himself. I don't want to break his confidence by asking things about him that he may not want me to know. It doesn't seem, well, it doesn't seem right. When Psyche tries to uncover the things that Cupid is hiding from her, all she does is drive him away. I want to believe that if Hieronymous has secrets, that he'll tell me himself, when he feels ready."

The headmistress tilted her head to the side with one finger pressed to her lips.

"I appreciate your intentions, my true blue bluebonnet, and they are certainly admirable, but I do think that in this case, learning at least  _a little_  will help you to understand him better," she said. "You are patient and kind to be willing to wait until he is ready to tell you himself, but in my honest opinion, he may  _never_  be ready to tell you himself." She thought about it, then offered her own solution. "Perhaps then what I will tell you will only be just enough to put you on the right track to understanding things. That man is a thorny tangle, and I definitely think that you will have to devote all your considerable talents to figuring him out. But then," she smiled, "You are the girl who solved the mystery of the Flaming Falcon, aren't you?"

Amoretta's cheeks turned rosy at the sly compliment. She did rather like playing girl detective. It was quite exciting, although the title Petunia Potsdam had given to the adventure made it sound less as if it concerned arson and more as if it might have involved a beauty contest that ended in murder.

"All right then," she agreed hesitatingly, "But only tell me what you think is absolutely necessary. I'll try to figure the rest out on my own as best I can."

Petunia Potsdam nodded judiciously and then laid two of her fingers against the side of her face.

"Once upon a time," Petunia Potsdam began, as if spinning a tale of princesses and dragons and knights questing after holy grails, "There was a little girl. As often happens in these circumstances, this little girl was not born into the most privileged of circumstances. Like the miller's third son, all this girl had to earn her fortune in the world was her own cleverness, which was, fortunately for her, considerable. Still, life was not easy for her, even with all her cleverness. The world can be a hard place, and it was to this little girl. She learned to be stubborn and self-reliant, although she never gave up what was perhaps her greatest gift, even more valuable than her genius: her kind heart full of love for the world that could be so terrible. When she reached her thirteenth year, this little girl met a great wizard and was given a Choice," Petunia Potsdam paused to regard Amoretta very thoughtfully before she continued. "The girl made the same Choice that you yourself did, and soon found herself on her way to one of the greatest and oldest magical schools in the entire world."

"This was an old school," the headmistress reminded Amoretta, "And so it was filled with very many very old families, families with wealth and prestige and pedigrees like the king's horses. The little girl had no pedigree. She had no family wealth and her name was not an old one, but rather a common one. Perhaps worst of all was the fact that she did not even have a happy home to provide any consolation. As I have said, the world is a hard place. Although the little girl had entered a world of magic, this world was no easier to live in than the world she had left behind. The only thing she had to rely on was her own cleverness."

"Fortunately," the headmistress said with the wistful smile of memory, "This little girl was excessively clever. She was soon at the head of all her classes. She was not so much like a student as she was like a savant. I am sure you have heard tell of those for whom epiphanies are regular occurrences. There are some real and true geniuses in this world, and the little girl was one of them. Even as a girl in school she earned a name for herself among the great witches of the world. They called her 'the Peerless,' and indeed, perhaps she was."

"While she was at school," Petunia Potsdam continued easily, "The Peerless met a truly awful young man. He was hard and brilliant and brittle, because he too had learned early the lesson that the world is a very hard place," Amoretta's attention became very focused at this point, because there could be no mistake about the identity of this second character. "He had an old name and an old house and a considerable fortune, but none of these things gave him any happiness. Instead, being near him was something like a misery, since he could be very ugly and cruel. This young man had a great desire to prove himself, and he did not number himself among the Peerless's many admirers. He was instead her bitter rival."

"Or at least," the headmistress laughed, "That is what he intended, but you see, my lamb, things do not always turn out in the way that we intend. Before their first year of schooling was finished, the Peerless and the awful young man had become like two carriage horses: uneasy when apart and truly content only when they were together. But," here the headmistress heaved a sigh, "I am afraid this story does not end well. Although they had found one another, certain parties did not approve of their involvement. After all, the awful young man had come from a great, old house, and while the Peerless was brilliant, there are some who value the circumstances of birth above all else. The Peerless was a wildseed girl from a broken home, the bastard child of an alcoholic who was employed to scrub the floors of office buildings at night. She was not welcomed with open arms by the father of the awful young man, who had great plans for his son's future."

"Quite unsurprisingly there were some hard words between the awful young man and his father," Petunia Potsdam said, "And he resolved, as we often do in the passion of youth, to follow his own heart and his father be damned. And this is where the story begins to get difficult," the headmistress admitted. "Not because the awful young man decided to go his own way, but because of what happened as a consequence. Now, the Peerless witch was fascinated by one place above all others: the Mirabillis Library in Reverie, the capital city of Horizon, the nation of wizards." Petunia Potsdam paused to watch recognition flicker over Amoretta's face, "Yes, my darling, you may not recognize all of those place-names, but you do recognize some. The Peerless wished to travel into the Otherworld, seeking after knowledge that was not available to her in this world. Of course, she knew that the Otherworld is a dangerous placce. It was impossible that she did not, still there was nothing that could persuade her from her course of action. The summer after she left the great magical school, she went into the Otherworld, and the awful young man went with her."

Petunia Potsdam stopped speaking and stared at the ground for some moments before sighing. "And now," she said, "I will speak plainly. While they were in the Otherworld they were set upon by a war party of goblins. Singly, or even in small groups goblins are such that they can be handled even by students, but in overwhelming numbers - " Petunia Potsdam shook her head. "It was a massacre. Hieronymous watched as that girl was torn apart and eaten right in front of him, and he could do nothing to stop it. After there was nothing left of her, they took him off as a prisoner of war and kept him confined for some time. I suppose he was tortured. I really can't say. Goblins are not known for their kindness to their prisoners. When he was finally rescued and he returned to the material world, he found himself facing an inquest into the death of the girl. She had been the most promising witch of her generation, and so it was perhaps not surprising that he was blamed for her death. He has never been good at handling people, you know, and I can't say he really made the best impression at the trial. There were not many who ever really understood what it was the Peerless had seen in him in the first place, and he had very few friends, most of whom fled when fair weather turned foul. The trial acquitted him of charges concerning her death, but a 'not guilty' verdict does little to dispel the cloud of suspicion when the public believes you are guilty. Even if he could not have saved her life, many people believed that he ought to have had the good grace to die with her. Hieronymous himself still believes this, and it is one of the reasons that he hates himself so bitterly." She shook her head. "After the trial he fled England and he came here. He really didn't have much stomach for living any more. When I tracked him down, he was a shabby, bearded wreck. But he had had the makings of a great wizard once, and I believe in second chances, and third ones, and fourth ones, and however many are necessary, really." Petunia Potsdam smiled again. "You know, he's never really lived on his own. He's spent his entire life either in the house of his father or at school. He went almost directly from being a schoolboy to being a school teacher. School is like a garden, you see. At school you can hide from the rest of the world, living in a sort of perpetual youth." She shook her head. "School is really the whole of his world, school and his books. He pursues his own private research, but he has no life outside this school, no real hobbies or interests, no friends, and no place else to go. I don't think he's willing to allow himself to have those things. He has devoted himself to protecting the lives of the students here at Iris Academy. I suppose he sees it as an atonement. He's been here thirteen years now, and he has certainly done his part to keep the order and rescue students from peril, when necessary," she smiled again, wryly. "He's never gone so far as he went with you, however."

"All of this," Amoretta stammered, trying to get her thoughts in order, "All that's happened - "

"Has hit him very personally," the headmistress agreed, nodding. "When you asked me, 'why me?' I can tell you that some part of it, and it may well be a large part of it, is because of her. He watched her die. He did not want to watch you die as well. Hieronymous hasn't set foot in the Otherworld since that day. He hates it. He hates himself - and of course now you can see why he has such a personal vendetta against Damien Ramsey."

"Yes," Amoretta said softly, studying the ground. "I see." She thought about it very carefully, and then looked up again, biting her lip. "There is one thing I don't understand. If they were both captured, why was the girl eaten and Professor Grabiner spared? Why did he live through it? Why kill one and not the other - "

The headmistress held up a hand and smiled sadly. "That, I think," she said, "Is something that I will let you discover for yourself." She sighed and stood up and then a smile bloomed on her face again. "It's time we rinsed all that out of your hair. Come along, my duckling," she beckoned.

Amoretta obediently returned to the tub, where she was stripped of the robe and her shower cap and put back under the water again.

"I suppose you know of course that there's no way that you can be allowed to return to your family over the break. You're too weak to travel, and besides, it would be too dangerous to allow you into a situation where Mr. Ramsey might have another chance to make good on his intentions," Petunia Potsdam announced as she dutifully rinsed Amoretta's hair.

Amoretta had expected as much, but she still worried, asking, "But what about Uncle Carmine and Aunt Tulip? They'll be worried."

"I have already advised them that you'll be staying with us. I placed a person to person call from down in the village after I confirmed you were still among the living," she reassured. "Besides, no matter what I may think about it, I know for a fact that Hieronymous will be completely unwilling to let you out of his sight until this situation with Mr. Ramsey reaches some sort of resolution. And then there is the issue of the union of souls. Although you live relatively close to the Academy, I think you'd find that in about a week the strain of being apart from him would begin to be a noticeable drain on you. You  _could_ live apart from him, certainly, but I don't think you'd find it particularly pleasant, certainly not as a chronic condition. If you weren't already married he probably would have taken you on as an apprentice just out of convenience. As it is, you need no such excuse," she trilled pleasantly.

The headmistress began to hum pleasantly to herself again as she alternately rinsed and worked various concoctions into Amoretta's wet hair while Amoretta dwelt long and lingeringly on this newest revelation. It all made sense, ultimately. She shared a soul with Hieronymous Grabiner. She had entered into this contract of her own free will. She would be spending the rest of her life near him, no matter how either really felt about it. Amoretta wasn't sure she could really wrap her mind around the idea of reincarnation, the idea of being herself and yet not being herself, the idea of meeting Professor Grabiner again, under different circumstances, but there was weight in the number seven times seven. The headmistress had glibly announced that Amoretta would be spending thousands of years in Grabiner's company. Just trying to imagine herself in ten years was difficult for Amoretta. Imagining that they would still be together in ten years - it was all very difficult to accept, although it made her heart race.

During Christmas vacation she had eaten sweets and opened presents the same as she always had, little suspecting how much the shape of her life would change over the course of the next few weeks.

_Next Christmas,_ she thought dazedly to herself,  _Next Christmas I'll be spending the holiday with Professor Grabiner. Maybe he'll be willing to go have Christmas on the farm with Uncle Carmine and Aunt Tootie. Maybe papa will come -_

It was hard to imagine Hieronymous Grabiner among the familiar trees of her youth, or sitting on the porch of the small farmhouse where she had spent much of her childhood.

It was not a bad thought though.

It made her happy.

At last, the headmistress pronounced Amoretta suitably clean and assisted her out of the huge bathtub.

As Amoretta stood on the rose embroidered bath mat drying herself off with a pink monogrammed towel, the headmistress crossed her arms over her chest and asked if Amoretta had any more questions for her.

Amoretta had only one.

"Earlier," she said, "You said I had the faith of a rainbow. What did you mean by that?"

"Why," the headmistress laughed, and there was simple pleasure bound up in the sound. "A rainbow has the faith to turn circles in the sky, even during stormy weather."

A rainbow then.

That's what she would try to be.


	9. Seven: Defier of All Laws, Of All Conventions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?
> 
> Emma Goldman, Marriage and Love

For the second time in her life, Amoretta née Suzerain stood alone in front of the student body, her hands gripping the edge of the solid wooden lectern tightly. The faces before her, somehow strange and unfamiliar despite their obvious familiarity, swam in front of her as she experienced a momentary spell of dizziness. The headmistress had been right. She was certainly in no shape to travel, even if it was not very far to the family farm.

Still, this was something she had to do with her own strength.

After taking a deep breath, Amoretta gave the assembled students her smile, and then she began to speak.

Behind her, silently seated on wooden folding chairs, sat the faculty of Iris Academy. Petunia Potsdam was thoughtful and expectant, waiting to hear what it was that Amoretta felt she had to say. Rail Finch was plainly curious as to what she was up to, his ankle crossed thoughtfully over his knee, his staff laid across his lap. If he thought it remarkable that she had survived her brush with death with good spirits intact, he gave no sign of it, simply took everything in stride.

The other professor, her somewhat reluctant paramour and bound soulmate Hieronymous Grabiner, sat with his arms crossed over his chest, frowning. He had been against her desire to speak for herself before the student body from the moment he had heard of it.

"Don't be absurd," he had said angrily. "They nearly tore you to ribbons yesterday. Who was it that I found crying on the ground in the middle of the hallway? What makes you think they'll be any more charitable this afternoon? I'll not have you tormented for something beyond your control. You're my wife. I will handle things with the students. I will make the situation  _perfectly clear._ "

_That's what I'm afraid of,_  Amoretta had thought, distressed.  _He'll terrify absolutely everyone he comes in contact with. No one will ever be willing to speak to me again._

Amoretta did not want the rest of her tenure as a student at Iris Academy to be spent as an outcast. She had already had fleeting visions of herself as the little match girl, alone in the snow outside Horse Hall, while she peered with cupped hands through frost-obscured windows at the friendly warmth inside. Ready to take up arms against such an unsettling future, she had put on a brave face and shaken her head briskly in denial.

"Facing you was much more awful than facing them," she had told him honestly, and he had looked away, clearly embarrassed by the reminder of his uncouth and unwarranted behavior. "Really, at this point I think I'm ready to face down a drive of dragons. I'm not afraid," she assured him, and this was at least partly true. She smiled, and it was wistful. "I feel like this is my crucible. If I don't face them now, I don't think I'll ever be able to face them again."

"They will shame you," he warned bitterly. "They will shame you as they did before. Better for them to fear you than to disrespect you."

"That's your truth," Amoretta had agreed mildly. "I'm going to try to show you mine." She took a deep breath before continuing, closing her eyes and calming herself so that he could see her best self: the brave, confident, patient, mild-tempered Amoretta, the girl Petunia Potsdam was so sure could work miracles. "I won't let them shame me," she had comforted him, as if he had been the one in need of comfort. "Not this time." Amoretta gave him an encouraging smile as she spoke, one small hand over her heart. "I'm not ashamed, you see. I'm not even really sure why I ever was. I suppose I was just being silly. It's very easy to be very silly sometimes."

Amoretta was trying out Petunia Potsdam's magic trick of turning one's frame of reference around until the world suited one. She found she liked it. It did seem to make things considerably more easy to deal with.

"That woman has been filling your head with nonsense," Grabiner had guessed, sensing the influence of the headmistress on this newly resolved Amoretta. "That's where you got this dreadful, idiotic idea."

But Petunia Potsdam had shaken her head in denial.

"I'm afraid not, Hieronymous," she had said. "Amoretta decided she wanted to address the student body entirely on her own. I was uncertain at first, but seeing how determined she is, I resolved to let her say what it is she wants to say. It's her bed, after all. She ought to be allowed to make of it what she wishes before she has to lie in it."

"She's still just a student," Grabiner had complained to the headmistress, then he had rounded on Amoretta. "You're just a student," he repeated to her directly, clearly unwilling to let her stand before a possibly hostile crowd. "You have no right to speak before the other students. Leave that up to the faculty. The headmistress or I will speak. Do not expect to abuse your unique position for special privileges."

"I  _am_  just a student," Amoretta had agreed calmly. "But I am also the treasurer for the freshman class, and it is in my capacity as a student council representative that I wish to speak. It's my fault the accounting room got blown up, you know," she had reminded gently.

Grabiner had scowled and flushed faintly, because the subject of the accounting room's demolition was a sensitive one for him. His control of powerful magical effects was incredibly precise, which was why he had been confident enough to threaten to take Damien Ramsey's head off even while he held Amoretta captive as a human shield. He was not in the habit of bluffing. His marksmanship was superb. He regularly practiced shooting pin holes in dimes flipped into the air. He could not claim that he had blown open the wall of the accounting room  _accidentally_. He had done so deliberately. He had done so because he had been angry, and seeking vengeance - but he was not yet ready to admit that he had lost his temper, even if he had not lost control of his magic. This fact might have been glaringly obvious to everyone involved, but still, he was not yet ready to admit he had been at fault.

Hieronymous Grabiner did not like admitting that he was wrong.

And yet, it seemed that he always was.

So he had grudgingly agreed to let her speak before the student body as she wished - but he kept himself on guard, ready to intercede at a moment's notice should he sense that blood was in the water.

"Good afternoon, Iris Academy," Amoretta began a little timidly, and her eyes swept through the crowd until she found Virginia and Ellen, sitting together among the other Horses. Ellen was watching her with very serious eyes, and Virginia was leaning forward in her seat, as if she were ready to spring into action at any sign of trouble. Seeing them both reminded Amoretta of who she was and where she stood. She was Amoretta, once a Suzerain and now a Grabiner, and she knew the people of this school. They were her friends and sometimes they were her enemies, but most importantly, they were her family. Deep underneath the wooden floor of the podium, she felt her roots stretch down into the dark earth beneath the school. She knew who she was and where she was. There was nothing to be afraid of.

She smiled again, and this time it was brilliant and genuine.

"Thank you all for being willing to hear me out," she said, and now it was as if she were sharing her confidences with a small circle of friends, a circle that just happened to include the whole student body. She was was so honest and sincere, telling them her story with all its little joys and tragedies, that they were swept away by it, spellbound. She told the story as best she could, not because she had a duty to do so, but because she wanted to tell them, because she thought they all had a right to know. She was humble in her telling, honestly admitting to all her faults and shortcomings, but proud to extol the virtues of others. She told the story of meeting the manus in the accounting room in January, of how she had married Hieronymous Grabiner in the dungeons underneath the school with Minnie Cochran as witness. She told them the story of her friendship with Damien Ramsey beginning with the week of freshman orientation.

And then she began to speak about the events of the day previous.

"I was very happy," she admitted, smiling fondly at the memory, so recent, and yet divorced from current events by the chasm of the bloody hand print on her shoulder. "Professor Grabiner invited me to breakfast yesterday morning. It was the first time he had ever invited me to breakfast, you see, so I was really very excited. I was so excited that I didn't realize that something was strange until I nearly got to the cafeteria." Amoretta ducked her head slightly. "I have to apologize to all of you for how I acted yesterday. When I realized that everyone knew what was meant to be kept secret, I suppose I just sort of panicked. I know I behaved badly, and for that I am sorry."

In his seat, Hieronymous Grabiner tensed and readied to get to his feet to intercede.

" _How dare she apologize to them_ ," he hissed under his breath.

Petunia Potsdam swiftly moved to grip his sleeve tightly.

"Hold," she whispered back fiercely. "Can't you see what she's doing?"

On his other side Grabiner could hear a slight sound from the back of Rail Finch's throat. Was it a chuckle?

The man's smile was grim.

Already there were murmurs going through the student body. People were looking shamefaced at their feet, and trying not to meet the eyes of the freshman treasurer, who stood gripping the podium for support and smiling her familiar smile. At the moment her smile, which was perhaps the distilled essence of her being, was tinged with a few drops of wistfulness.

"After all," she continued candidly, "You all had a right to be surprised. I can't really even imagine how surprising it was to find such a thing out. A freshman married to one of the professors! Yikes, what news! I know that I would have been surprised if I had heard it, and I probably wouldn't have known whether or not to believe it. I'm sure I would have asked a lot of questions. I wasn't ready to answer your questions then, so I will try to answer them now, and thank you all very much in advance for having patience with me. I don't really like keeping secrets, so I'll try to tell it all, in the best way that I can."

"Yesterday evening, I ran off to the accounting room and hid there. I was feeling pretty lousy about myself," she admitted. "The whole day had been like a big, long,  _ongoing_  train wreck, and I just wanted to be by myself. While I was hiding in there and crying and feeling sorry for myself, Damien Ramsey unlocked the door and came to sit down next to me. At first it seemed like he just wanted to make me feel better, but then he asked me to go away with him. I didn't want to go, so I refused. When I did, his attitude seemed to change completely. I'm ashamed to admit that he overpowered me and would have probably carried me off against my will had Professor Grabiner not arrived in time to stop him. Damien held me as a shield between himself and Professor Grabiner, and then, and then Damien did something to me."

Here Amoretta calmly pushed back the capelet that she wore over her left shoulder to bare the curse-burn for all to see. She wore a light sleeveless dress under the caplet, thoughtfully provided by Petunia Potsdam, who had declared that her uniform needed considerable mending before it might be suitable for wear again. For the sake of her address to the student body, Amoretta had removed the dressings that Petunia Potsdam had provided, so the wound stood naked and fresh.

The curse-burn stood out angry and livid against her powder-pale skin. The seal that Grabiner had put on it and the headmistress had strengthened left the faint glimmer of spelltext over the wound, and although this would not have been discernable to the students in the audience, the truth the wound witnessed was plain. It was impossible to mistake and impossible to ignore. There on her body was was the grotesque mark of a hand, gouged and burnt into her flesh, as perfectly represented as if a madman had painted it on her skin in her own blood and gore. Another murmur of distress went through the crowd as Amoretta stood by and calmly exhibited the wound.

Behind her, Rail Finch let out a low whistle and Hieronymous Grabiner looked away.

He was angry. He was angry at Damien Ramsey for having done such a thing to her, and he was angry at himself for his failure to prevent it. He had left her alone. He had terrified her, and she had run from him, and the devil had gone to her in her despair. He had not been there to offer his protection until that protection came too late for anything other than picking up broken pieces.

The one thing he had meant to do, he had not done.

He felt his nails bite into his palm as he tensed again, balling his hands into fists.

"She is showing it to them for a reason, Hieronymous," the headmistress murmured beside him.

"Professor Grabiner prevented him from taking me away," Amoretta said, letting the capelet fall to cover the burn once more. She looked over her shoulder at him gratefully, and smiled. The look he gave to her then was intense, frustrated, and confused. He did not smile. He did not scowl. It was as if he did not know what to do with himself. He looked ready to burst. He was nearly trembling with suppressed action.

Amoretta turned her attention back to the student body, "And their altercation is why the accounting room is in the state it's in."

If Grabiner thought Amoretta was willing to leave the description of his fight with the devil boy bland and mercifully vague, he was mistaken, because she continued on, as calm and as frank as little girl describing a unicorn that she often sees in the back garden.

"To get Damien to leave me behind, Professor Grabiner threw a spell so hot that it blew up the back wall of the accounting room. I am glad that this didn't happen on a Friday or a Saturday, otherwise the week's allowances might have been blown up along with the back wall." Amoretta paused to make note of the looks of awe and surprise rippling through the student body at her description of Grabiner's heroic - if somewhat overzealous - rescue. She did not turn to look at the man himself, because at the moment, she did not want to know what he thought of her speech. "Fortunately they weren't, otherwise I'd have more to apologize for than I do already. Damien fled during the explosion, using a long-range teleportation spell that employed multiple travel vectors, making him very difficult to track," teleportation was something she was confident discussing, since it was one of the forms of magic she was best at. "Professor Potsdam pursued him all the way to the gates of Duzakh in the Otherworld before turning back. It seems that it had been Mr. Ramsey's intention to flee to the Otherworld from the beginning. He legally and contractually obtained the soul of a mundane girl from the village early yesterday morning," Amoretta paused for a moment and took a deep breath before continuing, "And brought about her death as a result. Although this is technically within his purview as a demon, Professor Potsdam confirmed that it is not behavior befitting a student of Iris Academy, and Mr. Ramsey has been officially expelled, as of yesterday. New wards and circles were laid over the school this morning, permanently barring his return, so you may all feel safe while at this school, despite what has happened."

Although this was all information that Grabiner and Potsdam had shared freely with her, she did not think that either had imagined she would take it upon herself to reassure the other students of their safety. She was a member of the freshman student council, however, and she took her duties very seriously. She also felt at least partially responsible for the calamity that had disrupted the lives of all the students at the school, and the fear and uncertainty that had been born out of all the danger and confusion.

If children couldn't feel safe while they were at school, where could they feel safe at all?

Behind her she could feel the headmistress radiating faint amusement and approval.

She knew that Grabiner was radiating  _something_ , but without taking the chance of turning around and looking at him, she really had no idea what his feelings might be, other than  _complicated_ , and probably  _unhappy_.

Amoretta took another deep breath, and then continued honestly. "I have to apologize again for the part I played in all of this. If I did harm, I did not mean to do it, although that is no excuse for the harm that is done. All I can do is promise you that I will keep doing my best to do what I think is right. I am always ready to apologize to people when I have hurt them, and to try harder to be kinder and more thoughtful, but I will  _never_ be willing to apologize for being myself or for carrying through with the decisions I have made."

This last bit Amoretta finished with passion and thunder, like a queen delivering an edict, and the student body sat stunned and perfectly silent.

Meekly, Amoretta added, "So having said all that, I hope you're all still willing to have me as your freshman student council treasurer. I promise I'll try not to have the accounting room blown up in the future."

After she had finished speaking, as she stood there, gripping the edge of the podium until her knuckles turned white, silence reigned supreme and cold, filling Amoretta's ears like white noise.

But then there was a whoop and some wildly appreciative clapping. Virginia had leaped to her feet and was applauding with such gusto it was as if she had just seen Elvis Presley back from the dead, adorned in sparkling rhinestones and performing his greatest hits while seated on the back of a tyrannosaurus rex - and for all the things the two siblings didn't agree on, Donald was immediately on his feet after her, trying to outdo his sister for noise and gusto.

It wasn't even another heartbeat before William Danson was also on his feet clapping, then Ellen and Luke, Logan, and Minnie - dozens of students, one by one, like little green shoots pushing up through the dark earth after a spring rain. They were all clapping, and Virginia and Donald were still whooping and hollering their appreciation.

Amoretta gratefully wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, and felt very silly, crying while she was grinning like an idiot, still clinging to the podium with one hand. It meant quite a lot to her that they were still willing to accept her, given all that had happened. She knew she looked like a great big baby, crying in front of everyone, but she just couldn't help it. She sniffled, then pulled Grabiner's handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose into it noisily.

Then she took a deep breath and raised her hands to quiet the roaring students. After a few moments of rumbling, they quieted down and took their seats again.

Smiling beatifically, Amoretta said, "And now I will take questions from the student body. Please ask me anything you want, anything I have been unclear on, and I will do my best to answer."

Behind her Hieronymous Grabiner hissed, "This is not a press conference!"

Petunia Potsdam gripped him firmly by the arm and kept him from leaping to his feet, primarily through intimidation. She could be an iron lady when she wished to be, and Grabiner was not really willing to cross her, even in a fit of temper.

"She knows what she is doing," Petunia Potsdam reassured him, watching Amoretta with the pure pleasure that arises from the confluence of interest and admiration. "What a girl you've got, Hieronymous," Petunia murmured warmly. "You underestimate her at your own peril. You wanted to rule them with fear. She has ruled them with  _love_."

The student body wasn't silent, but nor did they ask any questions. Instead, excited murmurs rippled through the large open space like waves, meeting at the center of the crowd and churning up considerable swells of excitement. Amoretta waited patiently for the excitement to die down. The students were not used to question-and-answer time over such a prodigious event.

At last, Manuel Arias stood up and nervously asked, "Is he kind to you?"

It was a question that was easy for Amoretta to answer.

"He is," she said honestly. "He's very kind to me. He's strict, but he's fair, and he's honest when he's made a mistake. He isn't mean, but he does have a temper." Here Amoretta smiled very fondly and her feelings were so obvious that even the flowers might have blushed. Then she gave what she calculated was a crowd pleasing wink before adding, "He's really a much better man than he first appears to be, although you'll have to take my word on that until I can produce photographic evidence."

Behind her she heard a guffaw which indicated that Rail Finch - at the very least - appreciated her joke, although there were ripples of amusement through the student body as well, and Amoretta began to loosen up.

Apparently satisfied, Manuel Arias sat down again.

The next question came from the tall, slender Pastel Rao, whose iridescent wings shimmered behind her as she asked, tilting her head to the side coquettishly, "Have you slept together yet?"

Amoretta heard a strangled sound at her back, which was apparently caused by the headmistress physically restraining her husband, but neither Amoretta nor Pastel showed any signs of abandoning the question, despite Hieronymous Grabiner's very obvious displeasure.

"If you mean 'have you spent the night together in one bed?' then the answer is 'yes,'" Amoretta answered pertly, because she had the crowd now, and she felt exhilarated. "Just last night, actually," she confided, as if to a sewing circle. "But if you mean 'have I lost my virginity yet?' then I must answer 'no, I have not' although," she admitted, knocking her knuckles three time against the wood of the podium, "Hope springs eternal!"

At this, the crowd of students roared in good humor, and there was some more clapping and whistling before Amoretta hushed them down again with her palms.

She was fresh faced and rosy cheeked and was clearly feeling that she was ready to take on the world. She had gone from pariah to princess in one speech. She was riding the high of her own success.

Of course, no matter how well one might be liked by the majority of people, there will always be some who are determined to dislike one, for reasons that are sometimes entirely beyond one's control.

Angela Kirsch stood up, one hand on her hip, the other thoughtfully under her chin, and crisply asked, "Would you care to explain your relationship with Damien Ramsey, because I still don't really seem to understand it. Were you or were you not lovers? If you were, I can't really say it's much of a distinction. Everyone knows he's slept with most of the student body. If you weren't, you must be the worst tease this school has yet produced. Don't take that as a criticism. Everyone has to be good at  _something_ ," She shrugged very elegantly as she shook her head, saying, "You claim to be Professor Grabiner's wife, but you seem to have kept pretty risky company for a married woman." She glanced idly at the perfect crescent moons of her manicured nails. "I can't really imagine that you found Mr. Ramsey's advances all that untoward, since you continued to see him, month after month."

Angela's question prompted another wave of murmurings through the student body. The accomplished senior witch looked smugly satisfied, apparently quite assured she had turned the tide of favor against Amoretta again.

But Amoretta was not cowed. She had said it plainly to Grabiner: she would not be ashamed.

"I  _am_ Hieronymous Grabiner's wife," Amoretta answered calmly, staring down Angela Kirsch steadily. "Damien Ramsey was my friend, because I - perhaps foolishly - believed he needed one. I still think he needs one even now, but given all that's happened, I'm not sure I can be that friend. I am not a judge. It is not my place to mete out punishments for the guilty, if guilty they are. I can only do what I think is right. I selfishly hope that Damien and I will not become enemies, but I cannot be his friend while he continues to threaten, injure, and kill people."

"Are you watching Hieronymous?" the headmistress asked the other professor, whom she had silenced and paralyzed to keep in his seat. "That is your Lady Halifax. That girl has got  _presence_ ," she finished admiringly.

As Grabiner calmed, watching Amoretta's serious and adroit handling of Angela Kirsch, Petunia Potsdam relaxed the enchantments on him, and found that he continued to watch her silently and intently, his eyes focused, his hands gripping his own knees. This was an Amoretta he rarely saw, one who seemed immense despite her diminutive size, and deliberate in a way that belied her youth and inexperience.

After Angela Kirsch sulkily conceded the floor, Amoretta congratulated herself that she had weathered the worst storm.

And then she found herself facing the calm and impassive smile of Logan Phifer, and this was somehow much more awful than a dozen smug, brutal Angela Kirschs, because his smile did not reach his eyes. It was polite and very distant. It was the same sort of smile she had seen on her father when she had done something he could not really understand.

"Are you happy?" was all Logan asked, and then stood there, silently waiting for an answer, his motives hidden behind his half-lidded eyes.

Amoretta smiled at him then, and it was a difficult smile as much as it was an honest smile. Logan was her friend, and she had kept secrets and troubles from him the same way she had kept them from her other friends. She had shut him out, and tried to carry all her difficulties herself, and had ended up badly hurt because of her stubbornness, her unwillingness to abandon even the most lost of causes until she saw it turn out right.

It was a valid question.

_These are the decisions you have made. Are you happy, or do you regret them?_

She already had her answer. It was not something she really had to think about, although she struggled to put it into words.

"I'm happy," she said wistfully. "I know I probably haven't always made the right choices, or the best choices, but I still believe in the choices that I made, in the choices that I'll continue to make from here on out. I know it probably seems wild and impossible, or maybe just really difficult to believe, but I am happy, even after everything that's happened. It isn't something I planned out. It isn't anything I expected, but maybe everything's like that. I'm happy because this is what I've chosen."

Logan said nothing, but simply nodded once, and before he sat down again she felt a moment of connection with him as he looked at her steadily, a quiet assurance.

_If you're happy, then that's good enough._

He didn't have to understand it. He just had to be willing to accept it.

And then he sat down and was lost among the other Falcons.

As Amoretta's heart was washed with relief, Minnie Cochran stood and gave her an encouraging smile before asking a question that she herself already knew the answer to.

"Do you love Professor Grabiner?" she asked.

_Thank you, Minnie,_  Amoretta telegraphed with grateful eyes.

"I do," Amoretta answered with a smile that warm and honest and geniune. "I love him very much - not because of anything he's done for me, although he has done more than I can say," she paused and then thought back to what Petunia Potsdam had told her earlier that morning. "I love him because I think he's a man worth loving."

As she spoke, Amoretta let go of the vice grip she had maintained on the podium throughout her speech and covered her heart with one of her hands. As she did so, she began to feel very dizzy again, and her knees trembled.

_I'm at my limit,_ she realized.

Just as her knees folded underneath her and she might have bashed her temple on the corner of the podium, she felt a steady arm around her shoulders, and then she it was as if she were tumbling end over end in an out of control tilt-a-whirl. When the dizziness passed, she realized she was in the arms of Hieronymous Grabiner, and that he had caught her as she had fallen, and picked her up as she obviously couldn't stand on her own two feet.

At this unexpected display of chivalry from their least favorite professor, the student body applauded wildly, whistling and clapping and stamping their feet in appreciation.

Grabiner frowned severely, but even his terrifying basilisk gaze could not erase the recent scene of matrimonial tenderness from the active minds of the student body. They honestly believed they had just witnessed a miracle of love, and they hollered appreciatively in response.

Raising his voice to be heard over the din, he announced grimly, "As Mrs. Grabiner is no longer feeling well enough to speak, the headmistress will conclude this assembly with her own remarks."

Then, doing his best to ignore the crowd's uproarious cheering, Hieronymous Grabiner carried his wife off of the stage and out of the building.

* * *

Grabiner was silent as he walked swiftly and purposefully, putting as much space as possible between he and his wife and the enthusiastic well-wishers of the student body. Amoretta was silent as well, although the silence they shared wasn't a painful silence. She was feeling weak and as flopsy as a rag doll, so she simply laid her head against his shoulder and let herself be carried. She knew that when he inevitably stopped and put her down that he would have  _some things to say_  about the speech she had just given, but she had known that from before the time she had given the speech. Whether or not he liked what she had done, it was still something that had had to be done.

_I will deal with the fallout when fallout happens and not before,_ she had decided sensibly. Until that time, she would simply enjoy the fact he was very steady when he carried her. It was very nice to be held, particularly by someone that she loved and trusted, particularly when she wasn't very certain that she could walk for any distance on her own.

Instead of carrying her back to his rooms, where they had spent so much of the past twenty-four hours, Grabiner instead carried her through the neat greenery of the quadrangle and out among the trees of the academy's park. He chose a solitary bench that sat among a stand of young trees, and deposited her carefully on it before standing back to look at her, his arms crossed over his chest. The branches of the slender trees were covered with small dark buds, the silent promise of the spring's growth, which was as yet unseen. The air was crisp and bracing, and although the sun shone, it seemed high and far away.

Amoretta, pleased to be afforded the chance at some fresh air despite the chill, smiled with the simple pleasure of being alive.

Grabiner sighed audibly and asked with some consternation, "What on earth am I expected to do with you?"

Amoretta wasn't sure whether he had meant his question rhetorically, or if he really expected her to have some sort of answer for him.

"I'm pretty pleased with what you've done so far," she answered encouragingly, wriggling her toes inside her soft soled shoes.

"You have embarrassed me in front of the entire student body," Grabiner complained, frustrated, and it was clear he was warring with himself over whether to admire what she had managed to accomplish, or be cross at her for the way she had accomplished it.

"I don't see why you ought to be embarrassed. I didn't say anything at all about what you thought or felt. I only told them what I think and how I feel," she pointed out, then she shivered, because the material of the dress she wore was relatively thin, and not much protection against the early spring chill, despite the caplet she wore around her shoulders.

When he saw her shivering, Grabiner made a brief rumbling sound in the back of his throat, something between a grunt and a grumble, and wordlessly unfastened the button-clasp of his cloak, sweeping it off of his own shoulders and then dropping it rather unceremoniously around hers. She was immediately much warmer than she had been and thanked him, but he only nodded once, frowning.

"The last thing I need is for you to contract pneumonia and end up killing us both," he said shortly, and then shook his head.

She pulled the cloak around her more closely and tucked her legs up into it, fastening the button at her collarbone.

"Well, now you make quite a charming picture, sitting there in my cloak. One would almost suspect that you had come outside half-dressed for just this reason," he commented dryly, then he frowned again. "Was that last little fainting fit of yours another calculated stunt?" he asked, his temper rising.

"No," she answered honestly, and then smiled again, well pleased with herself , "But it did turn out quite well, didn't it?"

Grabiner made another noise that was somewhere between a grunt and a growl. He knew very well that her dizziness on the stage had been no sham. If he had suspected her of shamming, he would have been happy to let her take an embarrassing pratfall for her trouble. He also knew that he was the one who had carried her out into the middle of a stand of trees and thrown her down on a bench without regard for what she was wearing. But just because he knew these things did not mean he could not put her on the spot for them. He was frustrated. The entire student body had seen him behave in a way that was entirely at odds with his image. It would be difficult to repair the damage that had been done.

"Because of your little puppet show back there, all of the imbeciles in the student body now have the mistaken impression that I am some sort of dark, romantic hero," he complained, annoyed. "I have worked for years to cultivate a persona that inspires fear and respect. Now, I imagine all the most appalling personalities will believe that they have something in common with me, that we are now  _comrades_." He said this last word with some distaste. He raised his hand to eye-level and marked out an imaginary line. "I was here, but now I have descended to here," he said, lowering his hand to his waist and marking out another imaginary line. "It's disgraceful."

"You know, not everyone is afraid of you," Amoretta pointed out conversationally. "Some people just don't like you."

" _Young lady -_ "

"Careful, sir," Amoretta warned playfully, "People will think you're my father and not my husband."

"Marianne," Grabiner began through gritted teeth, " _Amoretta -_ "

"Don't lose your temper, Hieronymous," Amoretta placated soothingly. "I'm sorry for teasing you. You know I respect you more than anyone else in the entire world, more than my father even. But I did mean what I said before. Not everyone is afraid of you. Some people just think you have a bad personality. I know better. I just want them to know better too. After all, I doubt that people will lose respect for you just because they've discovered that you're kind to your wife."

"I do not care what opinion the students of this academy have of my personality," Grabiner denied, a clear contradiction of his recent assertion to the contrary. "My responsibility is to educate them and to keep them from getting themselves killed or killing one another. I do this primarily through the rule of fear. It is a simple way, one that even the least promising of students easily understands. Every time you make me look ridiculous, my ability to control them with fear diminishes. If I turn into some sort of idealized representation of a make-believe husband, complete with a pipe and a glass of brandy, the discipline at this school will  _fall into chaos._  That woman, the headmistress, she's a  _decadent_. She cannot be relied upon to supply any level of decorum."

He had been railing with some passion, and had thrown out his arm to illustrate his point. Amoretta covered her mouth with her hand and he scowled, because it was obvious she was trying to conceal laughter.

"Hieronymous, I don't expect you to act any differently than you usually do. The man I love is, by popular accounting,  _absolutely horrible,_ " Amoretta said with some decision, and then gave him a small smile. "I am well aware of that, so don't imagine you have to change on my account. I  _like_ that you're mostly horrible. And if people suspect you of being soft because you don't actually spend your time pushing your wife down the stairs, then I'm sure they're in for a rude awakening when they cross you. Besides, just because you're kind to me doesn't mean you're suddenly expected to be Santa Claus to everybody else. Nobody else has to see the gentle, thoughtful Hieronymous Grabiner but me. If they did they might get  _ideas_ , and I'm not keen on having to defend my claim with a stick. Being around the real  _you_ is my special treasure. Isn't that supposed to be one of the privileges of being your wife?" she asked, then she looked up at the dark buds on the branches overhead. "I know I've caused you more trouble," she admitted weakly. "But it really seemed to be  _necessary trouble_."

"You take a lot of liberties, Mrs. Grabiner," he noted dubiously.

"I depend upon your patience and understanding, sir," she answered sincerely, looking down from the dark inklines of the tree branches and into his face.

He was watching her thoughtfully.

"Neither are qualities I am known for," he pointed out.

"You aren't," she agreed. "But you really ought to be."

He frowned, and said nothing. Then he shook his head and gestured to her with a brief flick of his wrist.

"Show me your shoulder," he said. "You're in pain, are you not?"

Amoretta bit her lip and nodded, even as she swept back the capelet and the cloak to show her bare shoulder. She shivered again in the slight March breeze. It was really too chilly to be out in such a light dress, even in a heavy cloak.

"And when were you going to inform me of this?" Grabiner asked with some consternation.

"It didn't seem like the right time," Amoretta began awkwardly, but Grabiner silenced her with an intense frown.

"Any time you are in pain, come to me," he said deliberately. "Regardless of the time or the place or the situation. You should not be made to suffer."

"Yes sir," Amoretta answered meekly.

Grabiner looked away from her before he spoke again. "You can go to the headmistress if you would rather. Her healing spells are less clumsy than mine, but I  _insist_ you not suffer in silence. There is no reason for it."

"No, I," Amoretta answered immediately, and then shyly looked at her lap. "I would rather, I mean - I would appreciate it - I want it, I want it to be you," she admitted, flushing. "I just, I don't want to be a bother to you."

"I can remember when someone full of a great deal of self-righteous fire declared, 'Your troubles are my troubles, and vice versa.' You're never a bother - " Grabiner paused with his hand above the wound and corrected himself. "You're  _always_ a bother, but you're not a bother that I object to."

Amoretta closed her eyes briefly and relaxed as she felt the magic from the green spell that he murmured knitting up her insides. Opening her eyes again to look at him, she could see that he was concentrating to make sure the spell had its maximum effect. Shyly, she reached toward the hand that hovered over her wounded shoulder with one of her own and folded her fingers over his bony hand. His spell wavered for a moment, threatening to collapse, as her touch had shaken his concentration, but she gave him an encouraging look and began murmuring the words of the spell herself, under her breath. As if he accepted her assurance, he caught himself where he had stumbled and completed the spell, with her hand on top of his.

When he lowered his hand, she made no move to let go of his fingers, and he did not try to shake her off. They were holding hands. (Technically speaking, she was holding his hand, but for Amoretta, it was close enough for a court of law). It was the first time they had ever held hands.

"Thank you, Hieronymous," Amoretta said genuinely.

"You're feeling better now?" he asked her seriously.

She nodded. "Not so dizzy, anymore. I think sitting out here in the fresh air helped."

"I'll take you back to the main building, then," he said, looking through the trees at the academy which stood not so very distant. There were students milling about in the quadrangle now, which meant that the headmistress had dismissed the assembly. "Do you think you can walk?"

As much as Amoretta might have enjoyed Grabiner carrying her back to the main building like a princess, she knew very well that she ought not to abuse her good fortune. It wasn't every day that the cow jumped over the moon, after all.

"I think I can walk," she agreed, and then was surprised as he leaned down to help her to her feet and then offered her his arm.

"Lean on me," he advised. "We'll go slowly."

Amoretta flushed as she nodded furiously.

"Yes, yes sir!"

"You don't have to salute, Amoretta," Grabiner noted dryly. "We're not on a parade ground."

She nodded again furiously, and he chuckled lowly, and then arm in arm, they slowly made their way back to the main building of the school.

* * *

Once they made it back to the school and Grabiner was relatively confident in Amoretta's ability to stand on her own two feet, he left her - at her request - in front of the library.

"After all," she had said shyly, "I'm not sure I'm ready for you to walk me all the way back to my room."

"All of the sudden you're as demure as a convent girl," he had remarked in return, although he seemed more unconvinced than belligerent.

"Well," she began haltingly, "If you take me back to my door, you'll  _have_ to speak with Ellen and Virginia," she reminded, "And on their terms and not yours. I suppose I just wanted to spare you that, for the moment."

"Are you suggesting that I might be  _afraid_ of Miss Danson and Miss Middleton?" asked Grabiner, with a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

"If you're not, then you ought to be," Amoretta said seriously. "If Virginia thought you were treating me badly then I have no doubt she'd try to push you down some stairs, so keep an eye out for that, in case of any misunderstandings - and Ellen! When Ellen's angry she can shake the pillars of heaven. I think she could wrestle a lion barehanded  _and win._ "

"I find myself mortified," he assured her, although he didn't sound particularly mortified. He paused and leaned forward to unfasten his cloak and pull it from around her shoulders, sweeping it back on in one motion and doing his best to ignore the curious stares of the students who just  _happened_  to be idle and lingering in the hallway in front of the library.

Amoretta seemed utterly unconcerned with the fact that they were being observed. She stabbed out a slender finger in warning.

"School girls can be very dangerous adversaries, Professor Grabiner," Amoretta declared.

"So I have learned," Grabiner admitted. "I'm glad to count you as my ally more often than my enemy. You obviously do not shy away from using unscrupulous methods of attack."

"Oh Hieronymous," Amoretta sighed with affectionate frustration, "You ought to know by now that I'm never your enemy. I'm always your ally. It's just that you may not understand how it is that I intend to help you."

Grabiner raised one eyebrow and said, "I suppose that is one way of looking at it." His mouth turned very serious again. "See that you rest this afternoon. Try to stay off your feet as much as possible. If you find yourself in pain, do not hesitate to contact me. Kavus will alert me, no matter the time."

Amoretta nodded obediently.

"I'll see you in class tomorrow, sir," she said, giving him a smile.

Grabiner shook his head.

"No. Tomorrow you stay in bed. I'll come by at lunch to see how you are. You need to rest. Your strength is not something that is going to return quickly," he warned sternly.

Meekly, Amoretta nodded. There was really no going against him when he was like this.

"Very well," he said, and seemed satisfied. "Good day, Amoretta," he said as he had said many times before.

"Good day, Hieronymous," she answered a little shyly, but she found he closed his eyes briefly and nodded at her in approval before putting his grimoire under his arm and departing toward the stairs to the second floor.

After he had gone, Amoretta let out a breath she had been holding and slumped a little against the wall of the library. Oh well. That was it then. It was time to go back to her familiar dorm room with its familiar residents - her roommates - and face an inevitable grilling.

With this thought in her heart Amoretta reluctantly began the trek back to Horse Hall.

It was lonesome to think that Grabiner was going back up to his rooms alone. Her own room wasn't very far away, and while it had been her home here at Iris Academy, and was filled with all the small treasures of her childhood and with two of her close friends, now it seemed strangely like it was a place she was going to visit, not to stay.

_I feel like I ought to go upstairs with him,_  she thought.  _But that's silly. If Professor Potsdam thought that was at all advisable, I'm sure she would have already suggested it. I'm perfectly safe in my own dorm room, and I know Hieronymous values his privacy, but -_

She liked the room filled to the eaves with books. She liked the man who lived there.

_It just feels like -_

_It feels like -_

Then she suddenly realized it.

_I'm homesick._

_That's what it feels like._

_I want to go home._

_Only, what 'home' means has changed._

Amoretta flushed without realizing it and reflexively covered her warm cheeks with her cool palms. As she stood there squirming, consumed by her embarrassment, she failed to realize that someone had approached her until they spoke with the solemn air of a ghost.

"I must give you my congratulations on your performance earlier," the tall, pale girl said. It was Raven Darkstar, the elegant freshman from Snake Hall. "It was quite heartfelt and moving. I wonder if next year you might consider joining the Drama club. You seem to have the natural gift of stage presence and a rare talent for invigorating the audience. That is, of course," she smiled mysteriously, "If you don't find yourself too consumed by your responsibilities as a wife."

Amoretta flushed more darkly and ducked her head, "Ah, no, I wasn't acting earlier, Raven. I was just saying what was in my heart."

Raven raised one eyebrow and her mouth quirked up at one side. "Say whatever you want to everyone else, but one professional can recognize another," she assured confidently. "Besides, no matter who we are or where we are, a true thespian is always playing their role to the best of their ability. You may call that 'acting' or you may call that 'living.' It's merely an issue of semantics."

"Ah," Amoretta said. "I see."

She didn't, not really, but she thought it would be rude to disagree with the other girl on an issue that she obviously took so seriously.

"I wonder," Raven said, tilting her head to the side, "If we staged Richard III in the autumn of next year, do you suppose you might convince your husband to act? It's as if Professor Grabiner was made for the part, and I think you'd make a splendid Lady Anne."

Amoretta laughed nervously at this, which Raven clearly meant as a compliment. "Oh, I'm sure he'd be flattered to hear that."

_I suppose some people still think that's the trajectory of our marriage: that at some point soon, Hieronymous is going to murder me and dump me down a well. I guess even if he doesn't plan to, he's very good at giving the impression that he plans to,_ Amoretta thought worriedly.

"I'm not sure how he feels about Shakespeare though," Amoretta pointed out with an awkward smile.

"Darling, everyone with an  _ounce_ of culture positively adores the Bard," Raven asserted, as if this was an undeniable true fact of nature. "You'll ask him, won't you?" she asked hopefully as she turned to go, "And tell me what he says. If not Richard III, then perhaps Macbeth."

"You think I could play Lady Macbeth?" Amoretta asked the departing actress with some confusion.

"Of course not," Raven paused to shake her head lightly, as if what Amoretta suggested was positively ludicrous. " _I_ would play Lady Macbeth, clearly. I imagine you would make a good Lady Macduff," the girl assured as she turned again and made her exit.

_I guess she's just determined to see me dead on stage,_ Amoretta thought as the dark-haired girl left.  _Is that the kind of character I have? No wonder Hieronymous is always so worried about me._

After watching the ebon-tressed thespian depart, Amoretta turned back around to find herself under the close personal scrutiny of one L. Phifer and one D. Danson.

Luke's black eye had faded considerably, and the cuts on his face were now nothing more than faint pink lines. They'd be gone soon enough, leaving behind no evidence of his junkyard brawl with Kyo Katsura. Amoretta blinked twice rapidly as she realized that Luke's fight with Kyo had only happened two days before. It seemed to her as if eons had passed since she had seen him last, escorted into an empty classroom by her husband.

Her husband.

Well, now he knew.

But if she worried how Luke Phifer had taken the news, she needn't have, because he gave her his slow, honest smile, and she knew everything was all right, that everything would be all right, regardless. It was information telegraphed without any spell. It was the pure magic of human communication, of emotional connection.

Which is why it burst out of her then, the first thing she could think of.

"Are you all right?" she asked anxiously, her hands clasped in front of her chest as she leaned forward slightly.

Donald laughed at that, placing a hand flat on her head and ducking it under as he mussed her hair.

"You are such a  _goon_ ," he declared, and then threw a thumb over his shoulder at Luke, who had begun to flush when Amoretta had leaned forward in such poignant concern. "This doofus is fine. I'm pretty sure he could be run over by a truck and come out of it okay. A fist fight with Katsura wasn't going to do much in the way of permanent damage. Might've even improved his looks."

Amoretta let out a breath she had been holding and then smiled in relief. "I'm glad," she said. "Although I don't approve of fighting." She turned her attention fully on Luke Phifer and planted her hands on her hips. "Why on earth were you fighting in the first place?"

"Well," Luke began awkwardly, his flush deepening as he kicked ineffectually at the rug underfoot, like the proverbially naughty schoolboy, "It's, well, you see - "

Donald rolled his eyes devastatingly and threw his hands up in the air. "This guy sees Katsura pushing you around in the quad, so he goes up and decks him. That's about it."

Luke's face passed from pink, through red, and into violet, and he hastily turned his back on the two of them.

Donald was still talking. "It's not like I take exception to the fact that he gave Katsura something to remember for messing with you, it's just that I think it could've been handled with a lot more style. You know that I know where to find a nearly limitless supply of really smelly poop. I call that an opportunity lost and gone forever."

Amoretta slowly ordered the events in her mind, trying to get them straight. She had seen Kyo Katsura frothing mad at Jacob Blaising in the quadrangle. Kyo had set upon her immediately afterward, and had nearly slapped her across the face. Then - Then Damien had stopped him.

She couldn't think about that. Nothing that had happened related to Damien made any sense to her, so she pushed it out of her mind. She would think about it later, when she had more pieces to push around.

After Kyo had stomped off, Amoretta had at last made the connection between the hair-trigger falcon and the fire that had threatened Logan Phifer and his roommate Jacob, and had run off to tell Grabiner all that she had deduced.

While she had been off playing girl detective before the decidedly unimpressed authorities, Luke had been throwing punches on her behalf. Unconsciously, Amoretta slid her palm up her arm, to the place where the wound was still bare under the capelet, and she winced a little, not from pain, but from the sheer unfamiliarity of it all.

Two days ago she had apparently been the subject of a schoolyard fight. It was something that had never happened to her before, so far as she knew.

This week seemed practically full-to-bursting with firsts.

Although Luke's back was turned, Donald was watching her closely, and he put a steadying hand on her right shoulder as she winced.

"Hey, you okay Fiddler?" he demanded, and Luke turned around abruptly, apparently forgetting his embarrassment in his concern for her well-being.

Amoretta smiled weakly at the two of them and nodded her head.

"Yeah, I guess, considering." She ducked her head shyly. "I'm awfully sorry that I had to keep a lot of stuff from you guys since Christmas. It was all really complicated, and it wasn't even really my secret, you know? It was just  _partly_ mine. You guys are always so good to me, that I hate that I paid you back by lying about things - "

She halted as she saw Donald hold up a hand.

"Water under the bridge," he insisted. "So you married Grabby, whatever," he shrugged, then the easy smile left his face, and his brows drew. "I only wish, I mean, I don't know what I could have done, but I wish I'd done  _something_ about Damien. That was me failing at being a friend, so I'm sorry for that."

Amoretta gave Donald a grateful look and then shook her head slightly.

"You're both great friends," she reassured them, reaching out to take them both by the hand, so they stood there, hands linked, looking like they were about to play ring around the rosey. "About Damien, well, it seems like a lot of people who are a lot cleverer and wiser than we are didn't notice anything was wrong either. Anyway," she said resolutely, "There's no point in blaming yourself for something that wasn't your fault that's already happened. That doesn't do any good at all. It does negative good. So no moping about it, promise?"

The boys both realized she was giving herself a stern pep talk as much as she was lecturing them, and so they both agreed, although Luke sounded very distracted.

It was then that Amoretta realized that Luke was staring at her hand in his, and as she looked down, she realized that she had inadvertently left bloody fingerprints on him. She had let her fingertips brush against the naked wound only a few moments earlier, and then forgotten in her haste to take his hand and make up with the two of them.

Amoretta flushed scarlet and hastily tried to pull her hand away, apologizing.

Luke kept a firm grip on her hand, blood and all, and said, "It's all right, you know? It's just us. We're your friends."

It was all too much for Amoretta: Luke's steady, sincere smile, the familiar weight of his hand against hers, the cocksure grin of Donald, who had ahold of her other hand -

Her carefully built defenses crumbled, and fighting tears, she blindly dragged them both through the nearest door before she collapsed noisily into sobs.

"If anybody's in here, throw them out!" she commanded - every inch the proper sobbing princess - as she cried earnestly into Luke's shoulder.

Amoretta rightly knew that the sight of her crying noisily in the hallway wasn't particularly unfamiliar to the regulars of Iris Academy, being that she was of a very soft-hearted and emotional bent, but she worried that if people saw her crying at this particular juncture, they might assume she was crying because of something Grabiner had done to her, and then all her hard work to improve the image of their marriage would have been for nothing.

Still, there was no stopping a good cry when it came on, and this one was certainly long overdue. She cried for a great many reasons: because she had been hurt badly, and had put on a brave face for everyone, because she was tired and scared, and it was hard to smile all of the time, and because she knew that people loved her, and because she was grateful for their love and friendship. She cried for no reason at all: because she just had to let everything out.

Donald, relatively used to these outbursts, looked around himself briefly and then answered somewhat sardonically, "You don't have to worry. We're alone in here."

Letting go of her hand, he went to station himself stoically in front of the door, so that their continued privacy was assured.

It was then that Amoretta caught sight of the urinal on the wall and realized that they were in the boy's bathroom.

"Go ahead and cry yourself out," Luke suggested, patting her gingerly on her back, as if he worried she were fragile, like a sugar sculpture. "It's all right. We'll stand watch."

Amoretta did cry. She cried for as long as she wanted, and neither of the boys said anything, just stood as silent witnesses to her tears. Neither shied away, as if her tears were something awkward or embarrassing to watch, but stood by patiently, letting her tears run their course. They both seemed to realize that she needed to cry for a while just to get it out of her system, and Luke continued to pat her on the back hesitantly every once in a while.

Although neither of the boys said anything, their silence wasn't stifling. It was the comfort of total acceptance. It was true and honest, even if it was not beautiful, and that honesty made it beautiful. They were both there, both quietly providing their support. It didn't matter at all that they were sharing a stolen moment between a wall of urinals and a toilet stall. It might have been a palace balcony, surrounded by the roses of true friendship and it wouldn't have been  _better_. It would have just smelled less like ammonia, she thought.

She was grateful for their comfort. She knew that she wasn't yet ready to show her tears and worries to Grabiner. He had enough to deal with on her account without her troubling him further. She needed to show him that she was strong and capable. She meant to comfort  _him_ , and not the other way around, although she worried she hadn't been particularly successful at it lately.

She couldn't show her tears to the world for fear of what they might think. It was strange, celebrity, convenient and also inconvenient.

Her family was distant, as always, and could not provide her with any sort of support that it was easy for her to lay her hands on, but her friends -

She could show her tears to her friends.

"You're both wonderful," she told them in between sniffles as her tears at last slowed naturally.

"Yeah, we are," Donald agreed as he flashed her his familiar grin, apparently relieved to see her in better spirits.

"Feeling better?" Luke asked as Amoretta finally drew away from his shoulder, rubbing at her eyes with balled up fists.

She nodded, and then inexorably her eyes were drawn back to the wall of urinals. They looked like weird little sinks that had been riveted to the wall at the wrong height.

"You know, I've always wondered what it was like in here," she admitted.

Donald raised one eyebrow dubiously. "Pretty much like a bathroom," he said.

She wrinkled her nose and observed, "It smells like boys."

"Well, at least it doesn't smell like jirseys," Donald cracked, then added, "I bet if we didn't have cleaning mannikins it'd smell a lot worse."

The point was well taken.

Her tears spent, and the bathroom examined with the fastidious detail of a curious field anthropologist, Amoretta at last felt ready to face the world again. Donald thrust his head out the door briefly and then gave the all clear sign, and she was smuggled out of the boy's bathroom and back into less forbidden territories.

"And we didn't even get detention for it!" Donald crowed with a snap of his fingers.

Amoretta, with her knowledge of her constant djinni watchdog, was less optimistic.

"Yet," she added. "We haven't gotten detention for it  _yet_ ," she said ominously.

She really wasn't sure what the djinni was likely to report to her disciplinarian husband and what he was likely to withhold. She didn't think he'd rat her out for something so trivial as trespassing in the boy's bathroom, but one could never be quite certain. Amoretta had the eye of heaven on her, and she knew it. It was best to just accept looming punishments philosophically.

After all, she broke the school rules quite judiciously whenever it suited her, so it was reasonable to accept punishments accordingly.

Donald shrugged as if one detention either way didn't matter much in the grand scheme of things. It probably didn't, Amoretta reflected.

_He'll just give me demerits, anyway_ , Amoretta reminded herself. She hadn't served a detention since the middle of January. If anything, that seemed to be the weird special privilege of her position. He was harder on her than on anyone else.

Luke had lingered in the bathroom after their exit, and when he reappeared his hands were slightly red, as if he had scrubbed them half raw. Amoretta felt vaguely guilty about bloodying his hands. Every time he got even slightly soiled, he always retired to wash himself fastidiously (and many times when he seemed to be perfectly clean to her). Logan had once mentioned it was on account of something that had happened to him when he was a little boy. He couldn't be comfortable unless he thought he was completely and spotlessly clean. It was a compulsive behavior.

And yet he had patiently stood and let her cry on his shoulder despite the bloody fingerprints she had left on his hand, and had waited until  _she_ felt better to wash himself.

She gave him her smile again. Her friends really were the best friends in the world.

He smiled back, warm and familiar and a little goofy.

Donald threw his arm around Luke's shoulders and bestowed several noogies on him in a general feeling of camaraderie before the shorter boy at last threw him off.

"So Fiddler, where to next?" Donald asked. "We're your honor guard for the rest of the day. Think of us like the Secret Service."

This mental picture made Amoretta giggle, as she imagined the two boys in dark suits and sunglasses, talking into their earpieces while hustling her into a limousine. This raised a new question in her mind.

"Is there anything like the Secret Service in the witch world?" she wondered aloud.

"Well, lots of important witches have bodyguards," Luke said, "If that's what you mean."

"Although if you're considering it as a career choice, you probably want to pick something else, unless you're secretly a martial arts expert, or something," Donald said, miming a mark in the air to indicate Amoretta's less than impressive height.

She made a face at him, and he made a face back, because they were both very grown up and mature high school students.

"Anyway," she said, thinking about the wound on her shoulder, which still needed to be dressed again. "I guess I ought to go get bandaged up. That means P. P.'s office."

"You got it," declared Donald, and then true to his word, Luke and Donald escorted her to get bandaged up.

They both stood patiently outside the door to the headmistress's office while Amoretta received treatment, flanking it on either side, like the royal guard they were pretending to be. Petunia Potsdam found their attendance on Amoretta to be charming, and congratulated them on their gallant behavior.

"What excellent boys you both are, my lambs. Gentleness is a terribly important trait for gentlemen, and one so often neglected. Better to be kind and patient than brave and daring, but best of all to be kind and patient and brave and daring all at once. You do yourselves credit."

Donald rolled his eyes again, and Luke flushed, but both were obviously pleased by the praise from the headmistress, who had a soft spot for scamps, scallywags, and rogues, particularly the ones married to her permanent faculty.

After she had been thoroughly patched up, the headmistress saw Amoretta on her way, and the two boys were more than happy to escort her back to her dorm room. Although she had been reluctant to return to it at first, by now she was feeling fairly exhausted, and the lure of her familiar bed with its old fashioned quilt was very appealing.

_Any harbor in a storm,_  she thought with a tired grin.

She folded her hands behind her back as she walked between the two boys, and found that while she still got some curious glances from the other students, mostly what she received were familiar smiles, or other gestures of support.

_I suppose everything's turned out for the best,_ she thought to herself.  _I_   _know that speaking in front of everyone was a gamble, but it was really the only way I could think of to turn things to our favor. Goodness knows that if I let Hieronymous 'explain things' he would have just terrified everyone and considered that a job well done._

What he considered a success and what she considered a success did not always agree in definition or in final outcome, that was clear enough.

Her strength finally gave out on her as she leaned to open one of the heavy outer doors of the main building, but fortunately Luke scrambled to hold the door open for her while Donald gave her a shoulder to lean on.

_I really am even weaker than I was before,_ she reflected glumly. She had never been a remarkably athletic girl, although she certainly had what Virginia called 'remarkable enthusiasm.' Being attacked by the manus in January had sapped some of her strength, leaving her more easily tired and prone to strange aches and unexplained soreness. With the added weight of the curse-burn on her shoulder, Amoretta felt as weak as a kitten. Fits of dizziness came and went and she couldn't really trust herself to walk for any considerable distance or stand for any amount of time unassisted. She shifted between feeling too warm and having chills. She felt weak and feeble and not particularly coordinated.

All of the symptoms were magical in nature, Petunia Potsdam had assured her, and had to do with the fact that the curse-burn had done much to drain the life out of her. With plenty of rest, good food, and exercise in moderation, Amoretta could hope to recover her former health, but it would not be a quick recovery, nor an easy one necessarily. Green magic applied periodically to her body was necessary to aid the healing process, and would help to ease her through the worst times.

Although the walk from the main building to Horse Hall was not a long one, Amoretta still had to stop and rest once along the way.

As they neared her room, Luke had one final serious question for her, that echoed the question his twin brother had asked her under the bright lights of the gymnasium.

"Are you happy?" he asked her softly. It was clear that like his brother, he needed her reassurance that she didn't require some sort of heroic rescue from her own life.

She smiled at him then, honest and simple, and said. "I really am. You know I wouldn't lie about it. A lot of things are hard," she squeezed her eyes shut, "And who knows how they'll turn out, but I am happy, and I'm still me. Some things change, but some things don't," she said, giving Luke's hand a warm squeeze. "Make sure Logan knows that, all right?" she asked, giving away her own mild anxiety. "You'll always be my friends, no matter what."

Luke nodded once, then assured her, "I'll tell him."

The boys saw her to her door, and then beat a rapid retreat, on account of the fact that Donald had no desire to see his sister. She waved to them as they went, and couldn't help but shake her head affectionately as she saw Donald playfully punch Luke in the shoulder, causing the other boy to laugh and ruefully rub the back of his head.

Honestly, she was quite tuckered out, and it was with great relief that she stumbled over to her bed and flopped gratefully onto it when Ellen opened the door for her after she rattled off her familiar knock.

"Ah," she let out a long sigh. "I'm finally back."

"We were really starting to wonder whether you were coming back at all,  _Mrs. Grabiner_ ," Virginia announced, lying on her back on her own bed, her legs bicycling in the air. "Ellen thought you'd maybe moved upstairs to live with Grabby  _permanently_."

"Since your marriage is now public knowledge I thought it was a reasonable assumption to make," Ellen answered defensively, crossing her arms. "But Virginia told me that that's not how witch marriages work, that it's not necessarily expected that you live together."

"It's not necessarily expected," Amoretta agreed, feeling completely exhausted by the events of the past two days, "I wish it was," she sighed. "It would certainly make things  _easier_."

Ellen had stood up, startled by this sudden declaration. She looked worried, concerned, and a little betrayed.

Amoretta shook her head. "No, no, it's not because I don't want to keep living with you two. I love you both awfully. It's just, well, things are now very complicated. I won't be going home for spring break, for instance, and I doubt I'll be going home over the summer either. It's not because of the marriage, Ellen. Stop looking like you're going to call child protective services."

She closed her eyes briefly and said, "It's probably easiest if I just show you. Cast a spirit sight spell, Ellen, and then tell Virginia what you see."

Ellen frowned but apparently thought better of asking questions. After giving Virginia a sideways glance, she traced out a sigil in the air with a finger and murmured the words to the most familiar of the spirit sight spells.

The words of the spell had barely left her lips when she was stomping over to Amoretta's bed in a frantic fury.

"Amoretta,  _where's your soul?_ What's that thing?" she asked, tracing her finger along an invisible arc in the middle of the air. She turned back to Virginia and explained, "There's this shining line going from here," she pointed at the center of Amoretta's chest, "To who knows where. It's just flying off into nothingness, and her soul isn't here. There isn't an aura,  _nothing_!" She turned back to Amoretta and demanded, " _How are you even alive?_ "

Ellen had worked herself up into a state of extreme nervous tension. She stood there wringing her hands and stamping her foot by turns, demanding an explanation.

"You didn't tell us everything that happened last night at the assembly," she accused. "I knew you didn't.  _I knew it!_  I knew there were things you were keeping back."

"Hold it, hold it!" Amoretta cried, sitting up weakly and raising her arms in defense. "I wasn't planning on keeping things from the two of you. I just didn't want to tell the whole world every single bit of my business. I can't trust  _everybody_ , but I do trust the two of you," she assured, and then flopped back on the bed bonelessly.

She had meant to share her secret with the boys as well, but neither of them had been concerned about the particulars of her arrangement. They had apparently felt that the details were sure to sort themselves out.

Clinical, hypertense Ellen was another story entirely.

"How are you alive if you don't have a soul?" Ellen demanded, refusing to be reassured. It was as if she feared that Amoretta was a strange trick or mirage, and that she would disappear with the rising sun or with a shift of the light. She was yearning to have this uncertainty explained, but also terrified of it, as if learning the trick to the magic would dispel it forever, leaving them with an empty bed and only memories of their cheerful, hapless roommate.

"I do have a soul," Amoretta explained, attempting to comfort Ellen despite her own exhaustion. "That line you're seeing, that's the shape of my soul right now, and it isn't just flying off into nothingness." Amoretta pointed unerringly toward the wall. "That direction, right?" she asked.

Ellen nodded.

Amoretta already knew without asking. It was something she had discovered herself, an element of the union of souls that Petunia Potsdam had not mentioned.

_I could find him in a crowded room, even if I was blindfolded,_  Amoretta thought to herself. It was her heart. Her heart knew the way.

"Professor Grabiner is at the other end of that line," she finished simply.

Ellen returned to her bed and sat down heavily. "Would you please explain to me exactly what I am seeing?" she asked very calmly, although Amoretta was not so tired that she could not detect the slight tremor in Ellen's voice.

Virginia had stopped bicycling her legs in the air and sat up on the edge of her bed, looking serious.

"It's some kind of contract, isn't it?" she asked. "You made some kind of contract with Grabby. It was pretty obvious to me that something like that happened last night, what with all those candles on the floor, and some kind of a circle drawn out in chalk that I'd never seen before. You made some kind of contract bound in blood," Virginia said. "That's heavy stuff. You know that, right? A contract in blood is binding until you die."

"This one is going to be binding for a lot longer than that," Amoretta laughed weakly.

Ellen had gripped the edge of her bed in worry, and Amoretta could see her fingers knotting up the sheets.

"Tell us, Amoretta," she asked, her voice low and soft. "Tell us what's happened."

Amoretta took a deep breath and then said, "It is a contract. You're right, Virginia. Professor Grabiner and I swore a gimmal oath last night. It's binding for seven times seven lifetimes. One of the effects of the oath is the union of souls. That's what you're seeing, Ellen. Professor Grabiner and I now share a soul in common, made up of both of our souls combined. It's one soul in two bodies. He did it to keep me from dying."

There was a moment of audible silence after Amoretta finished her explanation, and then Ellen  _exploded_.

" _You're telling me that you're soulmates?_ With Professor Grabiner?" Ellen asked, leaning forward as her voice rose incredulously. To say that she was acutely distressed would have been an understatement.

"That's more or less it," Amoretta agreed. "And fatemates. If he were to die, I would die within a few days, and vice versa. Professor Potsdam says I'll become very uncomfortable if I go very far away from him, although it  _is_  possible. Which is why I'll be staying here this spring break, and then over the summer. It's also because of Damien. Professor Potsdam and Professor Grabiner wouldn't say much about it, but it's pretty clear that they think that he's not through with me yet."

" _How can you be so calm about this?_ " Ellen roared, leaping to her feet again in agitation and beginning to pace the small strip of floor between her bed and Virginia's bed: three paces one way, then three paces back. "Do you have any idea what you're saying? Seven times seven is forty-nine lifetimes. The average human life expectancy is about seventy years. Seventy times forty-nine is three thousand four hundred and thirty years, and  _witches can live a lot longer than regular humans._ Even if you think you think you love him - "

"I do love him!" Amoretta insisted, her own temper rising.

Virginia stood up and got between the two of them, holding her arms out to create a space. "I know, I know kiddo. We sure heard you," she said and stuck her tongue out as far as it would go, as if the thought of Amoretta's love for Grabiner made her physically ill. "Last night and then again today. It's not like we're doubting your feelings - "

"But feelings can change, Amoretta," Ellen said, throwing her arms wide in distress. "People's feelings change every day. I'm sure my mother - " she stopped and turned her face away, rubbing the back of her hand across her eyes before yelling, "I'm sure my mother loved my father when she married him, otherwise she wouldn't have done it, but then, just a few years later, just a few years later - " She was huffing now and she ran her hand across her forehead as if to clear away her confusion. "You're young, Amoretta. You're really, really young, and this thing with Professor Grabiner, he's a lot older than you are, and you don't have anything in common, and he has a terrible temper. We saw you yesterday. He left you silenced, even though you were crying. He wouldn't listen to what you had to say. I don't think any of this is good for you. The marriage at least would have only lasted a year. Then you could have gone back to your regular life, but now you're telling us this? That you're sixteen years old and your life is already decided? You're going to stay with him no matter what? This is why they don't let sixteen year old girls get married in the regular world:  _because they make a lot of terrible choices and ruin their lives._ "

Amoretta shakily got to her feet and faced off with Ellen. Virginia still stood between them, as if she thought she would have to intercede and break up a brawl.

"I  _am_ just sixteen," Amoretta answered Ellen quietly, her eyes closed. "You're right. I'm very silly and I make an awful lot of mistakes. You think I'm gullible and everyone thinks I'm too trusting. If I am then I am and I'm not going to apologize for it," she said, her voice rising as her eyes snapped open, flashing with the same fierce determination she had shown earlier before the student body. "I'm going to keep living the way I want to live, and if that gets me killed, or if it leads me to a life of misery, then that's fine,  _because it's the life that I chose._ " She took a deep breath. "I don't know everything. I know that I'll never know everything, and I know that I'll keep making mistakes, but they're my mistakes, and I love them. I refuse to live my life in fear, or to waste my time on regrets. I love Hieronymous Grabiner," she said very steadily. "I can't even say when I started loving him, since it seems so long ago now that I've forgotten. It's like I loved him before I had even met him. I know that my feelings will change. That makes me happy. I don't expect to love him next year the same way that I love him now, because we'll both be different people then, but I know I'll love him, because I think, I think," she struggled for words, "I think that's just the way I was made. I don't have any other way to be."

Her passion spent, Amoretta sank to the floor in a heap, and Virginia had to grab her around the middle to haul her back to her bed like she was a sack of potatoes.

Ellen was still frowning, and her face was wet with the tears she had cried while yelling at Amoretta.

"You may love him, but that doesn't mean he cares about you in the same way. One person can't hold two people up, no matter how hard they try," Ellen said sadly.

Amoretta thought about Ellen's mother and father and she sighed.

"Since I don't think you'll trust me to be objective about this, let's ask an impartial party," Amoretta relented, clapping her hands slowly. "Kavus," she called, "Come out. It's not an emergency or anything, I just want your opinion on something."

The blue djinni appeared almost immediately, hovering in the air above Amoretta's desk as if he were casually sitting on it.

"Yes, mistress?" he asked.

"Gah!" yelped Virginia, pointing at him. "It's that awful creep!"

Ellen had taken a step backward as well, and had already draw a wand defensively.

Amoretta raised both her hands in an attempt to reassure them.

"It's all right, I promise. Kavus doesn't mean any harm. He's just here as my - " Amoretta paused and considered her earlier experience with her Secret Service detachment. "Bodyguard?" she asked.

The djinni shrugged. "Babysitter is more like it," he advised, "As I am not allowed to take action on your behalf while on this campus, only alert the master as to your situation."

"He has you followed?" demanded Ellen, both astonished and enraged. "That's enough for a restraining order, Amoretta. I never imagined that Professor Grabiner was a stalker - "

"He's not a stalker," Amoretta tried to reassure the blonde girl, who had taken to pacing again.

The djinni shrugged again eloquently, as if he had his own opinions on the subject, but Amoretta made a slashing motion with her hand to indicate that this time he was invited to keep his thoughts to himself.

"Maybe everything that's happened has all been part of some weird, awful plan of his," Ellen cried, slamming her fist into an open palm in sudden horrified inspiration. "The circle in the accounting room, the manus, all of it was just an elaborate plan to get you to marry him.  _We ought to call the police_ ," she finished decisively.

"My life isn't a movie of the week!" Amoretta shouted back at Ellen, unsure whether to laugh or cry. "He didn't have to make up any sort of weird plan. If he had asked me to marry him, I would have said yes," Amoretta pointed out.

"Lunatics don't know things like that, Amoretta," Ellen said, shaking her head. "Lunatics don't think like regular people. They think like lunatics."

"Professor Grabiner isn't a lunatic," Amoretta insisted. "He's just protective. For goodness sake, Ellen, I was attacked on campus  _yesterday_. If he hadn't been watching me then Damien might have been able to carry me off. I couldn't have fought him off myself. He had me pinned, and then he silenced me." She sighed. "Besides, it's not like I mind Kavus. He's not really a babysitter. He's my bosom friend."

The corner of the djinni's mouth quirked up at that and he agreed with a smile like a shark.

"Most certainly. I am the mistress's bosom friend."

"You're  _all_ lunatics," Ellen said dismissively, then sat down on her bed again and crossed her arms.

As Ellen was apparently committed to being silent, Amoretta took this chance to ask the djinni the question she had summoned him for.

"Kavus," she said seriously, "I want you to give Virginia and Ellen your honest opinion on what Professor Grabiner thinks of me. Will you do that please?"

The djinni nodded once, firm and decisive.

"Very well, Kavus," Amoretta said, "Please tell them."

The djinni cupped his chin with a thumb and forefinger and said, "I would say," he paused thoughtfully, "That the master is abhorrently in love with the mistress."

Amoretta turned bright red at this plain statement of fact, and then she turned a little green.

"Abhorrently?" she asked, waving her arms pitifully in distress. "Kavus, couldn't you have picked a nicer word?"

"I have said what I see as the truth, and nothing less, mistress," the djinni answered mildly. "There are many people who would find the love between you and the master and between the master and you to be an abhorrent thing. That does not mean it is a good thing or a bad thing, simply that many people would reject it upon witnessing it."

Amoretta thought about it, and found that she had to agree with the djinni. There were many people who would disapprove of their match. He was twice her age, and her teacher. Grabiner had assured her, however, that the denizens of the witch world were more accepting of 'alternative lifestyles,' than those of the mundane world. Perhaps that also included professors marrying their students. She didn't see anything wrong with it, in any case. Neither did Petunia Potsdam, apparently, but Amoretta was beginning to realize that the elder witch was not always the best yardstick for gauging public opinion.

Then she thought of something else.

"Kavus," she began thoughtfully. "I've noticed that whenever you speak to Hieronymous about me, you always call me 'the mistress,' but whenever you answer him, or you speak to him in front of me, you don't call him 'the master.' You only call him 'the master' if he's not around."

"The master is very pretentious," the djinni said loftily. "It would be too much to gratify his ears with that title, whether or not I am bound by contract."

"Ah," Amoretta said wisely. "You do it to aggravate him."

"That is correct, mistress," the djinni agreed.

"Then why is it that you call me 'the mistress?'" she asked.

"That is also to aggravate him," the djinni answered plainly.

Amoretta flushed. "Well," she said. "Thank you for being honest, at least."

"Also," the djinni added, "It is a courtesy title. You are very  _interesting_."

It was probably a compliment.

"I guess I can't really deny that," Amoretta admitted sheepishly.

Virginia was frowning at Amoretta and the djinni dubiously.

"You and  _Hieronymous_ sure seem to be thick as thieves these days," Virginia observed, saying the forbidden name in a falsetto imitation of her roommate. She sighed and shrugged. "I don't really care what you do, so long as you're happy. Just don't tell me about kissing him or anything. That is so totally gross I would probably barf for a hundred years."

Amoretta looked smug, "Just so long as you don't go telling me about kissing Balthasar," she trilled, and Virginia threw a pillow at her.

On the other side of the room, Ellen sighed.

"I don't want to be angry with you," she said slowly. "I'm just worried about you. All of this is a lot at once. Have you thought about what your parents - " Ellen winced and corrected herself, "What your father will say when he finds out?"

"It's what I've decided, so I don't think papa will mind," Amoretta insisted. "He always says to follow your heart to find your fortune, and he's found an awful lot of fortunes, so I think he's sort of an authority on the subject."

"Well," Ellen said uncertainly. "If you're happy with the way things are, then I'm willing to accept it. But I'm going to keep my eye on things," she warned sternly. "And if I think things aren't right, I'm going to give Mr. Grabiner a piece of my mind, Professor or not."

"Roger," Amoretta laughed. "I'm counting on the both of you to look out for me."

And the girls talked together for a long time, sharing their thoughts and fears and hopes, until at last Amoretta could not keep her eyes open any longer, and Ellen turned out the lights and they all three went to sleep.

* * *

It took a while for Ellen Middleton to get to sleep. The day had been very long and filled with many difficult things. When she finally did sleep, she dreamed that she was in the foyer of a great, old house, the kind of house one might see in a film about hauntings or jilted romance that ends in death. Although all the windows were shuttered, Ellen could hear the rain coming down outside like it was a deluge. Ellen knew she couldn't leave by the front door. She knew it with the kind of certainty you have in dreams. She climbed the broad staircase in front of her to the second floor landing, and the opened the first door she saw. All the doors she found opened easily, except for the front doors, which she knew would provide no exit. Each room she entered was lit dimly by candles, and the rooms were filled with strange shapes, all covered by drop cloths and sheets. She uncovered one to find herself staring at a bronze statue of a lion, roaring or screaming, she wasn't sure which. She didn't try to uncover any more of the shapes.

She walked for hours through the house, never seeing another living soul, although sometimes she heard strange sounds behind her, or her footsteps seemed to echo even when she was no longer walking. Once she stood before a mirror and realized with growing horror that the girl who stared back at her was not her own reflection. It looked like her, down to the smallest hair, but it was  _not_  her. It  _could not_  be her. It was not even a girl. It was a repulsive thing. It was a thing to be hated and feared.

The thing in the mirror smiled.

Ellen woke up in a cold sweat to the sounds of maniac screaming.

It took her a moment to realize that it was not she herself who was screaming.

The next few moments were pandemonium as Ellen struggled out from under the sheets and blankets on her bed like she was trying to escape from having been prematurely buried alive. Virginia was rolling out of bed at the same time, and they collided with one another, causing Virginia to be thrown back onto her bed while Ellen felt frantically around for the light switch.

Even with the lights on, things weren't much better.

The person who was screaming was Amoretta. She was thrashing around in her bed as if she was having some sort of seizure and screaming as if she were being murdered. Ellen stumbled over to her and tried to shake her awake, but when her hand touched Amoretta it came away bloody. The wound on her shoulder had soaked through the dressings. Amoretta began to cough uncontrollably, apparently hoarse from all the screaming, and Ellen took hold of her uninjured shoulder and tried to shake her again.

Amoretta continued to thrash, and her face was wet with tears and twisted by horror. Ellen shot a desperate look at Virginia over her shoulder.

"Go get the headmistress," she shouted. "I can't wake her up!"

Virginia was off like she'd just heard the crack of a starting pistol, throwing the door to their dorm room open so hard that it banged against the wall as she dashed off in search Petunia Potsdam.

She had barely gone, and Ellen was still struggling to think of what to do with her pitifully moaning and coughing friend when another figure burst into the room. It was Hieronymous Grabiner, looking like he'd just rolled out of bed himself, clad in a robe, pajamas, slippers, and absurdly, his hat. He didn't say a word of greeting to Ellen, simply pushed into the room and drew the blankets back from the moaning girl, who had sweat so much the bed linens were stained pink with the blood. Ellen covered her mouth with her hands because the sheets were not only stained pink, they were also stained yellow. Whatever terror Amoretta was facing was so great it had made her lose control of her voluntary faculties completely.

Grabiner seemed unphased by her condition, and Ellen was ready to curse him as heartless. He gripped Amoretta's right shoulder firmly and shook her, but he was not any more successful in waking her than Ellen had been. Ellen struggled to tell him that shaking her had had no effect, but he ignored her, instead raising an expert hand over Amoretta's face, as he began the incantation to a red magic spell. Ellen wanted to demand what he was doing to her, but before the words were out of her mouth a perfect sphere of water had formed under his hand, about the size of a tennis ball. With a flick of his fingers he let the ball fall onto her face, and Amoretta's eyes came open suddenly, wildly. She was still terrified, as if she were not entirely sure she was awake.

Grabiner leaned down pulled her into his arms, completely disregarding the blood and the mess, and began patting her back soothingly.

"It's all right," he murmured softly. "You're awake now. You're awake. You don't have anything to fear. It's all right."

Ellen sat back on her heels and watched him, dumbfounded. Amoretta had wrapped trembling arms around Grabiner's neck and clung to him, sick and pitiful and exhausted. He soothed her like the most tender minister might soothe a terribly ill child. When he caught Ellen staring at him he only offered her one grim, awful look before he turned his attentions back to Amoretta.

It was clear that he was entirely uninterested in her opinions on the matter, and it was equally clear that she would not speak of them to others if she valued her life.

It was only a few moments later that Petunia Potsdam arrived, fetched by the out-of-breath Virginia Danson, who looked as if she had sprinted the entire way there and back.

Potsdam positively floated in a pink chiffon nightgown and lavender bed jacket, but her face was deadly serious as she came into the room, despite her fuzzy pink bunny slippers.

"How is she?" she asked the other professor, who still held the sobbing, ailing girl in his lap, his arms wrapped around her.

"She's been haggarded," he said grimly. "I had hoped - "

"Sometimes the world does not live up to our hopes, Hieronymous," the headmistress cut him off, and he looked away, his arms visibly tightening on the trembling girl.

The headmistress's stern glance became gentle as she looked at Amoretta's fearful face, just visible as she peeped over the edge of Hieronymous Grabiner's shoulder.

"For every problem, there is a solution," she advised, then knelt down at Grabiner's side to speak to the girl directly, taking one of Amoretta's hands from around Grabiner's neck to hold in her lap. "I know you've just had a terrible experience, my darling lamb, but you're all right now. You're safe and you're with friends who love you very much."

Sniffling, Amoretta nodded against Grabiner's neck.

"Now, my chickadee, why don't you come with me and we'll get you all cleaned up? We'll have a nice shower and you'll feel much better afterwards. Ms. Middleton will accompany us, won't she?" the headmistress asked with a brief glance over her shoulder. Ellen nodded. "So you don't have to be afraid. Everything will be all right."

Reluctantly, Amoretta let go of Grabiner and accepted the assistance of Petunia Potsdam. Reluctantly, Grabiner let go of her, although he and Potsdam exchanged glances over her head. Ellen bit her lip.

"Please get some clean things for Amoretta," Professor Potsdam asked Ellen as she helped Amoretta to her feet.

Ellen hastened to comply, and soon had a shower tote full of things for her weak and troubled friend.

Petunia Potsdam was very serious as she spoke to Grabiner while Ellen stood ready at her friend's other side.

"She'll need a dream warden, Hieronymous," Petunia Potsdam said.

"I know," he admitted shortly, and then looked away.

Apparently satisfied by this response, Professor Potsdam departed with Amoretta toward the communal bathroom on the hall, and Ellen followed after them, carrying the tote.

Virginia was left alone in the room with Grabiner, who still sat crouched on the floor, apparently thinking. After a minute or two had passed, she put her hands on her hips and regarded him with one raised eyebrow. At last catching her glance, he rose to his feet, glowered at her, and then departed from the room.

He didn't go very far, though. Looking out the door to their room, she found him sitting on one of the wooden benches in the hallway, his legs stretched out, and his arms folded over his chest. From time to time, other doors on the hallway would open a crack, as curious girls tried to peep out and see what had caused all the commotion. Every time one of the doors opened a sliver, he would bark out, "Go back to bed. It's past curfew," and the doors would quickly close again. After a while, no one dared to open their doors again, because they all knew he was out there, waiting like a watchful dragon.

The only door that remained open was the door to Virginia, Ellen, and Amoretta's room, where Virginia still stood in the doorway, her own arms crossed, and watched Professor Grabiner.

He was clearly agitated, and several times he got up briefly to pace, and then sat back down again in frustration. At last he turned to Virginia, who stood watching him like he was a caged jaguar at the zoo.

"Might I have a book?" he demanded. Grabiner had phrased it like a question, but it certainly did not come out as one.

Virginia looked at him like he was covered in pink and yellow polka dots. "What?" she asked.

"A book," he repeated, growing even more agitated. "I know that reading may not be your forte, Miss Danson, but surely you must have at least heard of them. They're about this size," he mimed, "And they're made up of pages bound together, and do you know what? The pages have words written on them. Fancy that."

"You're such a pill I don't know how Amoretta puts up with you," Virginia observed, making an ill face again. "Sure, we've got plenty of books in our room. What do you want one for?"

"To  _read_ , Miss Danson," Grabiner answered between gritted teeth. "That is what one does with a book."

Virginia shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Sure, I'll get you one." She turned to look back into the room over her shoulder. "I'm not gonna give you one of Ellen's books, but Amoretta's got plenty. I guess it's probably legal to let you read one of hers." She disappeared into the room for a moment and pulled a random book from the shelf over Amoretta's desk and turned it over to Hieronymous Grabiner.

Grabiner looked at the book he'd been given blankly, then looked back up at Virginia.

She had crossed her arms again.

"Don't like it?" she asked in a challenging tone.

"No," Grabiner said, shaking his head as he attempted to relax and open the book. "This will be fine. Thank you, Miss Danson."

And so he sat and tried to read the book.

Amoretta didn't really know what to expect when she emerged from the bathroom, clean and swaddled in fresh pajamas and a robe that smelled of rosebuds. She certainly did not expect to see Hieronymous Grabiner sitting patiently on the bench outside her dorm room, apparently engrossed in a Nancy Drew mystery novel that had obviously come from the shelf above her desk.

He looked up when he saw her emerge, and the relief on his face was evident for a moment before he carefully schooled his expression and stood, moving to meet her in the hallway.

Petunia Potsdam and Ellen Middleton appeared behind her, Ellen still holding tight to the tote that now held soiled clothes. Her face was very complicated.

"How are you feeling?" Grabiner asked Amoretta, putting his hand on her right shoulder.

"I'm all right now," she assured him, and gave him a small smile.

"The headmistress explained things to you?" he asked slowly, his eyes sweeping over her shoulder to briefly settle on Petunia Potsdam before they returned to Amoretta's face.

Amoretta ducked her head and nodded.

"I understand," she said.

"Very well," he said. "Then we'll go."

Then he paused and turned back to the bench where he had left the book, picked it up, and put it in the pocket of his robe.

"I hadn't finished it yet," he told her very seriously, and Amoretta nodded, smiling again tiredly as she laid her head on his shoulder.

He put one arm around her shoulders, careful to avoid the terrible burn, and then bid the assembled ladies good night, slowly walking Amoretta out of Horse Hall and into the night outside.

Back in the hallway, Ellen shook her head, but said nothing, and then returned to the room where Virginia stood, watching the two of them go. At last, the headmistress blew them both a kiss, and Virginia closed the door to the room tiredly, and flipped off the light.


	10. Eight: Should Vanish From Her Clothes Into Her Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bride, before a " Good-night" could be said,  
> Should vanish from her clothes into her bed,
> 
> John Donne, An Epithalamion, or Marriage Song on the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine Being Married on St. Valentine's Day

Amoretta was a wraith, a non-being, one who no longer leaves ripples in the passage of material time. Her physical body still existed, a monument of flesh and sinew and electrical impulses, but it was remote, and she felt no attachment to it. That it still existed was something she knew in the vague way that one knows that the ground is somewhere underfoot, even while one is falling. She felt her body nearby, knew it was shuffling along, clinging instinctually to the comforting arm of Hieronymous Grabiner, but she knew that its eyes did not see, only stared blankly forward. It moved forward when it was prompted, but it probably would not have moved otherwise.

Of course, Amoretta had not really detached herself from her body, although this was the only truth she could perceive, lacking a frame of reference. She had hidden so deep inside of herself that she had lost her relationship to the outside world.

The fear had driven her into the deep, elder parts of her brain, and she had not yet fully emerged. She felt she was dead, although logically she knew that she was still alive.

She felt she was a ghost, although paradoxically she was terrified she might meet another of her kind.

 _That's just ridiculous,_ she thought to herself tiredly.  _A ghost shouldn't be afraid of other ghosts._

But maybe it wasn't so ridiculous after all.

 _Human beings are afraid of other human beings,_  she mused.  _But being afraid makes you awfully lonely._

It was then that a warm spot appeared in her memory, as golden and familiar as a drop of honey.

 _Of course I'm afraid of being hurt,_  the headmistress had said.  _But I'm much more afraid of_ not  _being hurt. If you let yourself become numb to pain, you also become numb to joy._

She could not trade either in exchange for safety. She would not. It was a dull and stubborn truth, but it was etched into her bones, an indelible part of her being. She would not live her life in fear.

And so this is how she came back to herself, like slowly descending a ladder, rung by rung, until her feet were back on the ground, and she could feel the pull of Grabiner's arm, the real, physical weight of his presence.

He glanced down at her from time to time, as if impassively gauging her condition, and she trembled, but she tried to smile. He shook his head briefly at that, and she wasn't sure what to make of it.

He was escorting her through the main building along a path that had become familiar to her by now. Vague, half-remembered visions from her nightmares tormented her, and every time one of the phantom images passed along the edge of her vision, she shivered and clung more tightly to Grabiner's arm. Whenever he felt her tighten her grip on him, he murmured some soft words of comfort, reminding her that he was there beside her, and that she was awake. The burn on her shoulder had hurt awfully during the dream and even afterwards in the shower, but then Petunia Potsdam had done something to it, skillfully knotting spells together along the surface of her skin and then down into her bones.

The burn didn't hurt at all now, but the memory of the pain was now imprinted on Amoretta's mind. She feared that the pain would return almost as much as she feared the nightmare.

The school was dark and silent at this hour, with only a few courtesy lights burning to light the way through the halls. Of course, no one but the professors would be in the main building at this time of night, but still, Amoretta idly wondered what the gossip mill at the academy might have to say about Professor Grabiner taking her back to his rooms in the middle of the night. The wry amusement drove some of the fear away. She was  _certain_ her new sleeping arrangements were bound to be a popular topic of conversation. She wasn't sure if the news would break before the students left for their spring vacation tomorrow afternoon, but surely she would be questioned about it after the students returned from their break.

For Petunia Potsdam had made it very clear to her: things could not be as they had been before.

As they approached the old oak doorway that marked the boundary to Grabiner's inner sanctum, Amoretta was surprised to see that the door stood half open. He had clearly left the room in a hurry, not even stopping to close and lock his door. As they crossed the threshold of the room, Grabiner paused to look over his shoulder, out into the hallway.

"That will be all, Kavus," he said.

The blue djinni appeared as soon as his name was called, and Amoretta felt his eyes on her briefly, sensed his faint amusement. He was clearly still thoroughly entertained, although canny enough to keep this information to himself. He gave Grabiner a half bow before disappearing again.

If Grabiner had any opinions on his manus's attitude, he did not voice them. She thought he seemed tense and uncertain.

He guided Amoretta over to his desk chair and saw that she was seated safely, and then turned and closed and locked the door behind him, taking the time to lay two additional wards on it. He crossed the room in front of her and fetched a small box from one of the bookshelves. She wondered what he was about, but then he brought the little box back to the door and poured a line of white sand along the floor right inside the threshold. Then he did the same thing along the window sill of the room's only window.

 _Salt,_ Amoretta thought vaguely.  _He's salting the threshold. I guess he feels like he can't be too careful_.

His salting accomplished, Grabiner took off his hat and casually threw it on the bedside table nearest to him and then paused to rub his temples and run his hand through his hair. As if suddenly remembering something he'd forgotten, he absently pulled the novel from the pocket of his robe and put it on his bedside table as well.

After a brief glance around the room, he sighed and set about making the bed, as the sheets and blankets all lay piled up on the ground in a strange nautilus twist, as if he had extracted himself from them with some difficulty.

As if he sensed her intentions, he said, "Don't get up. I can see to this myself. You just sit," without turning to look at her.

"Yes sir," she said, and she just sat.

He got the bed back in order with little difficulty, but he seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time making sure the flat sheet was properly tucked in at the corners. It was how her Aunt Tulip made beds: hospital corners, she called it. When you made the bed for Aunt Tulip the sheets had to be so tight that a quarter dropped on them would bounce several inches in the air. If the quarter didn't bounce, one had to make the bed again. Amoretta didn't have any quarters in the pockets of her pajamas, so she couldn't see how Professor Grabiner's hospital corners might have stacked up to her Aunt Tulip's. He probably would not have approved of her checking, anyway.

At last he had finished making the bed and turned back to regard her thoughtfully. She sat, as she had been told. He was thinking about something. He shook his head once, as if clearing cobwebs out of his skull, and then he was shrugging out of his bathrobe, which he went to hang in the bathroom. Then he returned to where she sat.

"Do you need me to help you out of it?" Grabiner asked, and he was very frank, but somehow he also seemed distracted, as if he was turning something over in his head.

Amoretta flushed and stammered, "W-what?" Reflexively, she shrunk down a little in the chair, although she really couldn't have said why. She wasn't afraid of Grabiner. She wasn't even afraid of the question or its implications, but given her situation, the question was, at the very least,  _startling_.

"Your robe," he said, frowning and offering his hand. "Unless you sleep in it, for some impossible to fathom reason."

"Ah!" she said, nodding, because in that context the question was not quite so arresting. "No, I don't sleep in it," she said, and was soon struggling out of it and nearly toppling out of the chair besides.

Grabiner sighed as he caught the chair and the girl and put them to rights again before there was a catastrophe. "That's why I asked if you needed assistance," he explained tiredly. Then he was helping her up and out of her robe. "Sit there," he commanded again, and she sat dutifully.

He took her rosebud smelling robe into the bathroom with him, and he hung it up over his own. Then he could not help but pause as he stared at the robes. It was such a simple, practical sign.

Things could not be as they had been before.

Running his hand through his hair again, he returned to find Amoretta still patiently sitting.

Well, now there was no more avoiding it. The only thing to do was take responsibility.

Grabiner cleared his throat.

"How much of dream warding did the headmistress explain to you?" he asked, hoping against hope that Petunia Potsdam had somehow made a full and complete summary to Amoretta, so they would not be forced to have any awkward conversations with one another over it. Despite his hopes, his actual expectations were very low. He did not count on Potsdam having explained anything of substance to her, and he could just imagine the headmistress's face as she tiptoed off to her own bed, giggling into the flowing sleeve of her bed jacket.

"She told me that I'd have to sleep with you," Amoretta answered candidly, wriggling her feet up and down inside her slippers.

Grabiner resisted the urge to groan and passed his hand across his forehead as he turned his back on her.

"Is that all she told you?" he asked, dreading the answer that he already knew in his heart.

"Yes?" Amoretta answered uncertainly, because she was fairly sure that this was not the answer that Grabiner wished to hear.

This time Grabiner did make a sound: air exhaled through his nose sharply, and he turned to face her frowning.

"The first thing you should understand," he said, raising one finger swiftly and deliberately, "Is that we will be sharing a bed strictly for the utilitarian purpose for which it was created: that is  _sleeping_. Nothing else, do you understand me? I don't know what impression that woman might have given you, but this arrangement is a  _chaste_ arrangement."

"Are we going to be sleeping with a sword between us, like Tristan and Isolde?" Amoretta asked raising a hand to cover her easy smile.

" _Marianne_   _Amoretta -_ " Grabiner crossly began what was obviously going to be a long lecture on the proper attitudes and behaviors of a young lady, but Amoretta held up both of her hands weakly in surrender.

"I'm sorry, Hieronymous," she apologized, while still enjoying the joke  _discreetly_ , so as not to upset him. "I didn't mean to make you angry. I know it's been a long day for both of us. I really did mean what I said before. Professor Potsdam told me that I should expect to sleep with you, here, for the foreseeable future." Her cheeks turned a little pink as she shyly continued, "I'm sorry. I know it's trouble for you, and that I've disturbed you again, but, I - I wanted to come back. I missed you."

Impassively, Grabiner consulted his watch and then said, "I left you in front of the library less than twelve hours ago."

She ducked her head. "I know," she admitted. "I'm sure you think I'm awful and melodramatic and ridiculous. I'm sure I sound like an idiot, but I really did miss you. When you left me in front of the library, well, I wanted to go with you." She looked down at her feet. "I know we've got our own separate lives, and I know you want time to yourself, but after everything that's happened, it's like, it's like I'm  _uncomfortable_ when you're not around. I can't feel certain unless I know where you are, or at least that you're coming back for me. I know that I'm putting too much on you. I know that I'm expecting too much from you, and I'm really sorry," she said, and she felt like a very old leaf, brown and dried up until it's almost as wispy as air. "I know that I shouldn't keep depending on you - "

"You can depend on me," Grabiner interrupted her troubled confession with a simple statement. Then his mouth became a thin line as he stood thinking. "You are correct in stating that I cannot be with you at all times. I have responsibilities other than you to consider, my position as an instructor at this academy being a not inconsiderable one in itself." He paused for a long moment, and then when he continued it was awkwardly, as if he was unsure of what words he ought to use, as if they were all unfamiliar in his mouth. "If it gives you any comfort, you should know that I consider you my primary concern. You can come to me when you're troubled. You can tell me when you're upset. I - I'm not always the most patient man, and I am a poor source of comfort at best, but if I can ease your fears, then I will. You shouldn't try to carry everything yourself," he said, shaking his head and looking away. "It's too much for you."

"But isn't that what you do?" Amoretta asked, getting unsteadily to her feet. "You try to carry everything yourself."

He turned his back on her then and covered his eyes with his hand.

"Yes," he said tiredly. "I suppose I do."

When her arms came around his middle it was startling to him, as if it were an action that he truly could not have predicted. Amoretta held him gently but firmly around the waist. She had come up behind him in slippered feet and hugged him, like an assassin striking a fatal blow  _of kindness._  What had given her the courage to hug Hieronymous Grabiner, she could not have said, but perhaps it was simply that he looked so weary from his troubles. She loved him, and she wanted his heart to be at ease. He was very still when she put her arms around him, and he did not move at all. He neither welcomed her, or dismissed her. She could not really tell if he was pleased or displeased, but she kept holding onto him regardless of what he thought about it.

"I want to help you with your troubles too, Hieronymous," she confessed quietly, her cheek against his back.

He laughed and the sound was bitter as well as pitiful. "You're just a child," he said.

"When you were my age, did you think you were a child?" she asked pointedly, still making no move to let go of him.

He laughed again and the sound was very raw. "When I was your age I was a damn fool who thought he had unraveled all the Great Mysteries of the universe. Let me tell you, girl," he said, his voice rising in anger and frustration. " _I was wrong._ "

"If you were going to give me advice on what I ought to do, then what would it be?" Amoretta asked softly. She was really uncertain of what she ought to say to him in this situation. If she chose wrongly then she feared she would face a volcanic eruption on the scale of Krakatoa.

Grabiner's response was immediate, as if he did not even have to think about it.

"Don't get involved with me," he said.

Amoretta let go of him to put her hands on her hips. "Hieronymous, that's terrible advice!" she exclaimed. It was really  _shockingly_ bad advice. She couldn't have said what sort of advice she had expected him to give her, but the advice he had dispatched was so  _obscenely awful_  that it demanded comment.

He rounded on her because he had by now lost his temper. "I never claimed to be an authority on advice for lovelorn school girls," he retorted angrily.

He was so full of vengeful ire, standing there in his oatmeal brown pajamas and slippers, that Amoretta dissolved into helpless laughter and threw her arms around his middle again with artless familiarity, as if he might have been a beloved pet dog.

Grabiner discovered - or rather rediscovered - a singular truth: it is very difficult to maintain one's anger while one is being adored, no matter what the first party may think about the appropriateness of the second party's actions. He did not become gay and light-hearted, but his anger cooled and his frustration faded gradually.

But he did not allow himself to touch her. It had been a very difficult day, and he did not want to give away more than he meant. He realized now that he had put the gimmal ring on her third finger like an idiot. The tragic truth was that it had  _simply never occurred to him_  to put the ring on her first finger. He had been under a great deal of stress, but to make such a mistake -

But then, there is no lying to oneself. He was already unwilling to give her up to anyone, not a younger man, not a handsomer man, not a brighter man - if one such existed somewhere. It was easy to mock her and to call her a child, to call her silly or idiotic, but even he could not ignore how constant her heart was. He had not wished to ensnare her in a net of forty-nine lifetimes, but if he would be bound, it would not be to a friend. He had no experience with them. There was only one vow he knew how to make, only one vow he was willing to stake his life against.

"Hieronymous," Amoretta said as she interrupted his thoughts, "I love you." She smiled and it was sweet, but tempered by pain and understanding. She was weathering her own storm.

Then she drew away and obediently went to sit in the desk chair again.

He didn't have any words for her. He wasn't sure he would ever have any words for her, but forty nine lifetimes provided a long time to consider what to say.

He sighed again and brushed his fingertips across his forehead.

"Let me explain what happened to you tonight," Grabiner said, and he sounded more calm than he felt. "That mark you have," he gestured to her left shoulder, where the curse burn lay concealed under bandages and her pretty pink pajamas, "It's called a 'witch's mark,' although not all witches have them, most obviously. That mark is a curse and a brand. It was the work of infernal sorcery to burn that into your flesh, and it is not a mark that can ever be erased. Perhaps you've heard the phrase 'the devil's on your shoulder'? Well now, Amoretta, you have a personal understanding of what that means. The devil  _is_ on your shoulder," he finished grimly.

Sitting with her feet tucked into the rungs of his desk chair, Amoretta felt the blood leave her face as she gingerly touched the place on her shoulder where the bandages covered the mark that Damien Ramsey had left on her.

"That mark is a beacon for  _things unwanted_  by any sane person," Grabiner said, and his voice was very tight. "Mr. Ramsey clearly had very specific intentions when he cursed you with it." Grabiner frowned and the lines on his face were deep as he looked away. "That burn is an indelible personal connection between you and Damien Ramsey that can never be erased, save with his death. But mark my words: I will not suffer to see you afflicted for longer than I have to. When I see that boy again, I will kill him. That is the only certain way of nullifying the curse."

Amoretta was troubled, and her teeth grazed her bottom lip as she thought about things.

"You and Professor Potsdam seem so sure about what Damien intends to do," she began uncertainly. "But you won't tell me anything. Why can't - "

"It's because I am hoping against hope that it will not come to pass," he answered sharply, wheeling to look at her again. She shrank back a little from his harsh tone, and Grabiner shook his head, attempting to calm himself. "Forgive me," he said, and this time it was something strangely between a command and a request, "But it is something I would not wish upon anyone, the least of all you. I fear you will find out soon enough as it is. When you do come to understand what it means," he turned away from her and studied the ground, "I ask that you remember that no matter what choices you make, I will always be here, waiting." Then his voice rose in uncontrolled emotion as he nearly shouted, "But I will  _never_ allow you to purposefully hurt yourself, no matter what good you may think it will do."

Amoretta had no idea what he was talking about, although she had to assume that it was something to do with Damien Ramsey and the mark on her shoulder.

"Hieronymous," she asked, tilting her head to the side, "What makes you think that I'll try to hurt myself?"

"Because you're  _you_ ," he answered in frustration, throwing his arm out as if the answer were plain, "Because you were apparently born with the soul of a saint and the mental capacity of a turnip. It's surely providence that I am here to look after you, because I am beginning to have paranoid delusions that the entire world is out to remove you from the face of this planet."

It was difficult to argue one's position when one had absolutely no idea of the landscape surrounding one. Grabiner had a considerable tactical advantage in this case, and it was really neither the time nor the place to argue the point. They were both tired and their nerves were frayed. She couldn't really blame him for being on edge. Considering what had happened to her yesterday evening on this very campus, a sanctuary considered beyond reproach, he had every right to be.

"I won't choose to hurt myself," Amoretta tried to reassure him, "I promise."

"Of course you won't choose to be hurt, but you'll be hurt just the same," he denied, turning his back on her. "It is plain to me that you never consider your own welfare. Don't make promises you can't keep."

"I have to do what I think is right," she answered gently.

" _And I have to keep you from getting killed_ ," he shouted in response, turning to face her again.

"Otherwise you'll be killed too," she pointed out with a weak smile.

"My only consolation," he muttered, then sighed and when he spoke again it was clear and clinical, as if he were lecturing in class. "Tonight you were haggarded: that is, you were ridden by a night haunt. You are particularly susceptible to being ridden by spirits while sleeping because of the witch's mark. While haggarded you will see much more terrifying visions and nightmares than your own mind could ever construct. There is a very real danger that a haggard dream could send you into cardiac arrest, although it is not really the desire of the night haunt to kill you. They feed upon your fear and distress, and so they would much rather keep you alive for as long as possible, feeding on your fear by supplying you with nightmares whenever you sleep. Of course, the mind requires rest to function. Faced with serial nightmares of unplumbed horrors, even a hardened person will eventually succumb to madness." He paused to look at her, his hands clasped behind his back, and then continued, "Over time, you can be taught some measures of personal defense, but you should know now that attempting to shut out night haunts completely is as futile as trying to shut out the very air. It is possible, certainly, but you would soon perish without it. The only way to shut out night haunts completely is to cut off the flow of magic to your person, and that would most certainly kill the both of us, as it would kill any living thing."

Amoretta shivered and was sorry that she had already given up her robe. It was very difficult to sit still and quiet in the chair while he talked calmly about her descending into madness, about the nameless things that  _rode_ her in the night. The memories of the terrible dream were still fresh, if vague. She wanted to cry.

As if he realized how far he had pushed her, Grabiner crossed the space between them to put a hand gently on her shoulder, right over the mark of the burn.

"It's all right," he reminded her quietly. "I told you. I won't let anything happen to you. I can teach you things over time that will help you keep them off, and until then, I'll be your dream warden. I'll be your dream warden for as long as you need me to be. This is not something you should try to face on your own."

Swallowing hard, Amoretta nodded, and seeing that she was at least a little comforted, Grabiner continued.

"Strictly speaking, a dream warden is an outside party who shares a blood bond with the person afflicted - a witch's mark isn't the only thing that can make one susceptible to being ridden, " he said. "The dream warden acts as a guardian to the afflicted person, keeping night haunts and spirits from taking possession of them when they are in their weakest state, that is sleep. Our blood bond is not a familial one, naturally, but we share an oath bound in blood, and that is more powerful than even a tie of blood kinship."

Amoretta nodded again, and Grabiner proceeded.

"Warding someone's dreams requires close physical proximity, which is why the headmistress thought it best for you to be relocated here. I could hardly be expected to sleep in a room with three freshman students," he remarked dryly, and Amoretta flushed.

She didn't think Ellen and Virginia would have been particularly accepting of that arrangement either.

"If you do this, does that mean that you'll experience the dreams instead?" Amoretta asked worriedly, her fingers that had until this point rested patiently in her lap wrapping around one another in distress.

Grabiner closed his eyes briefly, because this was a question he had expected from her.

"No," he said. "It does not mean that. This is not a circumstance of equivalent exchange. My presence as a dream warden should be enough to dissuade night haunts from thinking that you are a particularly attractive target." He frowned and then continued, "But even if it did mean that I would face them in your stead, I would do it, whether or not you approved. You cannot face this alone. I will not let you."

"I wouldn't be willing to let you face it alone either," Amoretta admitted with a shy smile. "So let's be resolved to face it together, all right?"

Grabiner sighed and then nodded, saying. "Very well." Then he turned his back on her again and said, "There is one other thing. Dream warding doesn't only require close proximity, it requires that skin to skin contact be maintained throughout - "

Grabiner paused suddenly, as behind him he could hear the tell-tale rustling of clothing. He turned in a desperate attempt to stop the inevitable, like diving to catch a vase that is already destined to break upon the hard stone of the floor.

He found Amoretta with her hands on the buttons of her pajama top. She had already undone three buttons and was working on the fourth. He had seen the pale flesh of her collar bones and of her stomach the previous night, under much more dire circumstances, but somehow this was much more distressing.

"Miss Suzerain,  _what do you think you're doing?"_  he demanded, nearly shrieking in his building hysteria.

_Petunia Potsdam was somewhere laughing. He knew that she was somewhere laughing at him, at this very moment._

_She can probably hear me yelling,_ he thought distractedly _. I should stop yelling._ He found he could not stop himself from yelling.

"Hieronymous, you just said skin to skin contact - " Amoretta pointed out, pausing, her fingers still on the fourth button.

" _Hands, Miss Suzerain, hands will suffice_ ," Grabiner yelled, as he was clearly ready to tear out his own hair.

"Oh," Amoretta said calmly. "Well all right then." And then she began peacefully buttoning the buttons she had so recently undone.

Crisis averted, Grabiner passed his hand in front of his eyes again.

"Just get in the bed," he ordered tiredly.

Amoretta did as she was told, scrambling into the bed the same way she had the night before, and wriggling under the covers.

Grabiner paused by the nightstand to take off his watch and wind it. Then he crossed the room again and fished about in the lowest of his desk drawers. When Grabiner approached the bed again it was with a length of wide red ribbon. While it had several ritual purposes, he had never expected to employ it for this particular use.

"Give me your hand," he said, then corrected himself. "Your right hand, please."

Amoretta gave over her hand and with a little difficulty he bound her right hand to his left hand with the ribbon, winding it carefully up their wrists and then knotting it twice.

"There," he said, "That should keep us in contact throughout the night."

Then he leaned to turn off the lamp on the bedside table and found he had to stretch if he wanted to do it without dragging Amoretta halfway across the bed. He ended up dragging her halfway across the bed despite his best efforts, and she lay on his pillow, her hair mussed and completely in her face and her pajama top having ridden up to bare her stomach. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and flipped off the lamp, plunging the room into sudden darkness.

Then Grabiner said, "Please remove yourself from my side of the bed," as evenly as possible.

He heard her murmur something indistinct in reply, then he felt her squirming away, pulling his left arm with her. He carefully sidled into the bed then, as if coming into further contact with her body might set off a chain reaction that culminated in a nuclear holocaust.

At last they were both relatively well situated in the bed, and she was a tolerable, if not strictly  _comfortable_ , space away from him. But then she rolled onto her right side and drew her hand, and his by necessity, to her chest, and covered it with the one that wasn't bound up, curling up around it.

"I would prefer that you not do that," Grabiner said shortly. It wasn't as if he found the sensation unpleasant. That it was not unpleasant was admittedly worrying. It was certainly unfamiliar, yet it didn't feel strange. In this circumstance she was incredibly dangerous, and he did not understand her. It had been a long time since he tried to understand anyone. He could not say what he wanted from her, and did not want her to take away any incorrect impressions. He was not a man who gave away his heart, and by association his hands, easily.

"Oh," Amoretta answered back weakly. "Well, all right."

Then he felt her withdraw, rolling away from him and inching back to where she had been before. There was silence, and he could hear the sound of her breathing. He felt the fingers of her bound hand twitch nervously against his.

"Can I at least - " she asked softly, "Can I at least hold your hand?"

He answered with his own fingers, pushing them firmly through hers and giving her hand a steady squeeze. He felt her fingertips curling against the back of his hand, felt the hardness of the gimmal ring on his third finger pressed into his skin, and then he heard her make a small sound of relief, as if she had been holding her breath.

"I'm here for you," he reminded calmly, then added, "Just please, stay over there."

"All right," Amoretta answered peacefully. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I guess I just got too excited. I really don't get the chance to touch people very often, not like I really mean it, I mean. It's easy to give hugs out to friends, or just to be friendly, but that's different. Uncle Carmine and Aunt Tulip never really touched me all that much when I was growing up, except to give me spankings. Oh, don't think they weren't good to me, because they really were. I only got spanked when I was  _really bad_. I guess they were just letting me save my hugs up for when I saw my father."

"Your father?" Grabiner asked absently, happy to have a relatively safe topic of conversation for this peril-fraught situation.

"Noir Suzerain," Amoretta answered brightly, and Grabiner could hear the affection in her voice. "The Black Diamond. Black Diamond Suzerain. He's a professional gambler. I told you that before. Don't you remember?"

"Vaguely," Grabiner admitted.

"Since papa had to travel so much for his work, he left me with Aunt Tootie and Uncle Carmine when I was just a baby," Amoretta explained. "He came to visit as much as he could, and I always made sure to give him a lot of hugs whenever he did."

"And your mother?" Grabiner asked thoughtfully. He could not say when he had ever spoken with her at any length about her past.

"I don't have a mother," Amoretta replied cheerfully, squeezing his hand in return. "I was torn from the thigh of Zeus."

"Dionysus had a mother," Grabiner patiently pointed out. "It was Semele."

"Then I suppose I must have one too," Amoretta admitted, "Because everybody does, don't they? But I've never heard of her. Papa doesn't speak of her, and neither do Uncle Carmine and Aunt Tulip. That's all right though, because I know that papa loves me more than enough to make up for it."

Grabiner laughed at this without meaning to, and it was a strange, bitter sound.

"Hieronymous?" Amoretta asked, concerned, and rolled toward him again.

He caught her shoulder as she rolled toward him and his hand slipped down her arm as he felt her wince in pain.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, "But please, stay over there."

Reluctantly, she retreated again slowly.

As she did, he said, "I hope you never lose that innocence, although I know you will."

If she was worried by his harrowing prediction, she gave no sign of it, and although he could not see it, he could  _hear_ her smile. "If I lose it, then I'll just have to replace it with something better," she said decisively. She paused and then she continued shyly, "I ought to tell you right now that I move around sometimes while I'm asleep."

"That's all right," Grabiner said evenly. "That's what the ribbon is for. Our skin should remain in contact no matter how you may toss and turn."

"No," she said, and he could hear the pillow rustle as she presumably shook her head. "That's not what I mean. I mean, well, sometimes I get scared of the dark, or I just get lonely, and when I'm half asleep, I move around. At home I used to get out of bed and go curl up in the corner of the living room, behind the sofa. At boarding school I had my own little room, and there wasn't really anywhere to go, but twice before Christmas I crawled into Ellen's bed and once into Virginia's. So if I move around at night, I'm really sorry, and I don't mean to make you upset or angry - " now it all came out in a confused rush that left Grabiner's head spinning.

"Do you mean to tell me that you crept into Miss Middleton's bed in the middle of the night and she is still friends with you?" Grabiner interrupted her in disbelief.

"She didn't want to let me stay at first, but then I started to cry, so she let me. She's much nicer to sleep with than Virginia. Virginia just elbowed me in the face a lot," Amoretta volunteered honestly.

"Amoretta," Grabiner began dangerously, "Are you  _quite sure_  you're  _asleep_ during these episodes?"

"Mostly," Amoretta sniffled defensively, "I don't like being alone," she confessed. "Sometimes I get scared. There's nowhere for me to go, here. I can't go sleep in a corner if I get afraid.  _I'm tied to you._  The only place I can go is closer to you. Just don't be angry if, if I get afraid. It's not like I want to make you hate me, I just don't have anywhere else to go."

This time it was Grabiner who rolled toward her, pulling her close to him with his unbound arm. Amoretta trembled for a moment, because he held her very still. His body was warm. He smelled like an animal, like another human being. It was the simple comfort of contact, to push against his familiar bulk and be drawn in. It was  _vis insita,_ the romance of inertia.

"Then come here," he said with some deliberateness, then he paused and added, "But don't expect - "

" _I won't expect anything_ ," she interrupted him with some force, and then she shivered, but his hand was on her back, warm and familiar, and so she slowly calmed down.

She pulled their hands to her chest again and curled up against him, her forehead against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry I'm an awful mess," she admitted, sniffling again.

"Don't apologize," he said shortly, then let go of her and rolled over again onto his back. "You are who you are. I don't ask you to be different."

"I'm very happy," Amoretta said a little awkwardly, although she really meant it.

Grabiner covered his eyes with the back of his free wrist and said, "I know."

After some time, despite the strangeness of their new arrangements, they both found sleep.

* * *

It was very early the next morning when they were both shaken into hazy consciousness by Grabiner's alarm clock. It was still as dark as pitch in the room, indicating that it was perhaps even before the songbirds had woken up.

Grabiner grumbled incoherently as he rolled to reach for the alarm clock and found himself quite on top of Amoretta née Suzerain, the angry alarm clock caught in his hand.

"Hieronymous," she whimpered pitifully, still only vaguely awake herself, "You're  _heavy_."

The alarm clock was still jangling angrily, but there was no light in the room to see the time. The ribbon binding his left hand to Amoretta's left them in a considerable confusion of blankets and sheets, and although she did not find his presence on top of her to be particularly welcome, as this circumstance was less romantic than it was  _crushing_ , the horrid, incessant noise of the alarm clock made  _it_  rather than her his first priority. After all, a few more moments surely would not kill her.

"Bear it," he suggested, in a tone that did not really indicate that it was a suggestion. "I'm trying to turn off the damned alarm clock."

Of course, it was darker than a tomb and he only had one hand. He traced a pattern in the air and called up a light so that he could read the alarm clock. It read four thirty in the morning, just as he had suspected. He swore and it was disgruntled rather than enraged. He flipped the clock over and then with some difficulty he shut it off, then threw it unceremoniously onto the floor, where it landed with an upsetting clang.

Finally satisfied, he took a deep breath and then rolled off of his wife, who whimpered again with relief.

"Go back to sleep," he suggested, and he sounded as cranky as a sulky child. "We don't have to be up for another hour."

"Why was the alarm set so early anyway?" Amoretta asked, yawning.

"I forgot to reset it last night," Grabiner muttered into his pillow. "I don't have to meet you at the door this morning."

"Hieronymous," Amoretta cried dizzily, throwing her unbound arm over him. "Let's get married!"

"We  _are_ married," he reminded grumpily, and shoved her arm off.

"I know," Amoretta murmured dreamily, and then snuggled back against his shoulder. His only response was to mutter something vaguely.

They had, at least, one more solitary hour of quiet before the hurry and bustle of the day.

* * *

After an hour had passed, Grabiner consulted his wristwatch with the aid of another witch light. His timing was so uncanny it was as if he had an internal chronometer. On this day of all days he could not afford to be tardy for  _anything_ , not and retain even the final limp shreds of his formerly distant, forbidding persona.

If he were late this morning,  _people would talk._

He would not allow it to be whispered that he had been late because he had lingered in bed with his young wife. He would not take it for granted that the news that he had taken Amoretta back up to his room with him had not already run through the entire campus like a wildfire through drought-dry grass. After all, any number of girls had seen him in Horse Hall in the dead of night, and the girl did have two roommates - although now he supposed they were former roommates. Grabiner sat up in bed and stretched to flip on the bedside lamp and by necessity, a drowsy Amoretta was pulled against his back.

"Wake up," he ordered, glancing over his shoulder at her sleepy face. She was rubbing at her eyes with her free hand. He turned back to her and began to work on the knots binding their wrists together. He made short work of them and was soon flexing his wrist and his fingers. They were a bit stiff from having been held in one position all night long. Amoretta was not fully awake yet, so he took her by her right shoulder and shook her a few times. "Wake up now, Amoretta. You can't sleep while I'm not here to ward you."

"All right, Hieronymous, all right!" Amoretta relented, sitting up in bed, her head flopping forward almost limply. She yawned and then stretched.

Satisfied that she was now well awake, Grabiner put his feet into his slippers and then stood up on the chilly floor.

"I'm going to shower and get dressed first," he said crisply. "I  _ask_ that you respect my privacy." It did not really sound like he was asking. "Feel free to wash up and get dressed afterward," he said, and then disappeared into the bathroom.

"But I don't have any clothes to put on," Amoretta pointed out when he reappeared, clean and clothed.

He paused, one hand on the familiar cloak that hung by the door.

"I suppose that's so," Grabiner admitted, his eyes roving restlessly around his room. "We'll have to fetch some things up here this afternoon. You're to spend the day resting anyway, so your pajamas ought to suffice for today, but," he reminded sharply. "Under no circumstances are you to sleep. If you find yourself very tired, get up and sit in the desk chair. I will come by at lunch and sit with you, so if you feel you must sleep, sleep then. I won't be finished until this afternoon. I refuse to dismiss my students early, even if it is the day before spring break begins."

"You're brutal," Amoretta commented affectionately.

Grabiner took it as a compliment as he swept on his cloak in one motion, buttoning it at his shoulder.

"I am  _consistent_ ," he replied. "Be sure to rest yourself today, because tomorrow  _you belong to me,_ " he said seriously. "We will study grammar from morning until night. No breaks, not even for good behavior, although I do not labor under the impression that you have any idea  _at all_  of what those words actually mean. You asked to be educated. I will educate you."

"Will you hit me with a ruler if I fail to live up to your expectations?" Amoretta asked cheekily.

"Don't think I wouldn't consider giving you a swat if I thought it would improve your personality," Grabiner remarked dryly, picking up his watch from the bedside table and winding it before putting it on. "As it is, I have the feeling it would only encourage you." His eyes swept the room again, before coming back to rest on her. "I will leave Kavus at your disposal, and he should be willing to fetch anything you need." He paused, considering, then raised his voice slightly and said, "Kavus, you are to fetch Amoretta whatever she requires for the duration of the day."

The djinni appeared at once and nodded, although he did not say a word, preferring to silently observe the domestic tableau, smiling his familiar,  _faintly amused_  smile. The manus could say a  _great deal_  by not saying anything at all. If he sought to aggravate his master, he was at least  _passingly_ successful.

Grabiner frowned at the djinni and turned his attentions back to Amoretta, who sat on the bed with her knees drawn up to her chest.

"Read what you like to amuse yourself," he waved his hand idly at the books that filled every nook and cranny of the room, "But I hope I do not have to tell you that you shall engage in no magical experimentation  _without supervision_." He paused again and regarded the djinni. "Kavus, if Mrs. Grabiner seems intent on fiddling about with magic beyond her ken, you will inform me at once."

The djinni nodded again and made a slight bow.

"As you wish," he said.

"Hieronymous, I do have a  _little_ sense," Amoretta said defensively.

"Yes," Grabiner said appraisingly, "A  _little_ sense is about the measure of it. I have no desire for you to be the cat that was killed by curiosity," he remarked. "You now have charge of my life as well as your own, Amoretta, so no foolishness."

"Yes sir," Amoretta answered, a little put out.

"Good girl," he said easily, reaching for his hat. He said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world, although assuredly, he hadn't said such a thing for years and years. Practically, he knew that he had no time to dwell on this change in his character if he was to have time for breakfast before class.

"I'll have the kitchen send something up for you to eat. I suppose it will be broth and toast again, until you get stronger," Grabiner said, then he paused at the door. "I would have liked to take you to breakfast this morning," he said shortly. "Last time," he paused somewhat awkwardly. "Last time things did not turn out as I had planned."

"If you take me to breakfast in my pajamas, people will talk for the rest of the year," giggled Amoretta, hugging her own knees.

"They're going to talk for the rest of the year anyway," Grabiner advised seriously, setting the hat carefully on his head, and then pulling it down to adjust it. "So best get used to it. We'll have breakfast together tomorrow, on my honor."

"Asked to breakfast by Lord Halifax himself!" Amoretta teased, and she was pleased to see that her teasing elicited a wry smile and a sideways glance from her husband as he dismissed the wards on the door with his fingertips.

"I already asked you to breakfast," he reminded with grave authority, "And I am a man of my word. Feel privileged," he said glancing over his shoulder at her idly. "I wouldn't allow anyone else alive to call me that."

"I am privileged," Amoretta answered simply, her hands folded over her heart.

Grabiner turned back to look at her, his feet on the line of salt, his hand on the knob of the door, and sighed.

"You really are a silly idiot," he commented, but his tone was warm and familiar, not harsh and not cruel.

"I'm your silly idiot," Amoretta reminded with a smile, and he shook his head as he shrugged his shoulders lightly.

"Yes," he said, "I suppose you are."


	11. Nine: It Has To Be Made, Like Bread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.
> 
> Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

As it so happened, Hieronymous Grabiner and Amoretta née Suzerain did not study grammar "from morning until night" the following day, despite that professor's ardent desires, because the headmistress turned them out of the school for the day, declaring that they both needed fresh air, and this being a vacation, they ought to go on a picnic.

She had thoughtfully provided the victuals for this picnic in a pretty wooden box filled with sandwiches and pastries, which she passed over into Grabiner's keeping.

"Headmistress," Grabiner had protested, clearly disgruntled, "I might remind you that it is not quite five degrees outside. It is hardly the season for a picnic."

"Which surely poses no difficulty for a wizard such as yourself," Petunia Potsdam had glibly replied. "Take your wife out of doors, Hieronymous. It will do the both of you good."

And so, that was how Amoretta and her testy husband found themselves preparing for a picnic on the first morning of the spring vacation. But there is still a little to tell before that morning, for a very singular event happened the evening previous, before all of the students had quite left the grounds of Iris Academy for their own vacations.

* * *

Grabiner was sitting in his desk chair, his chin propped against his palm, and reading the final climactic scenes of the novel he had acquired from Amoretta's dorm room when he was disturbed by a firm knock at the door. Glancing sidelong at the door in distaste, as he was never pleased to be interrupted while reading, no matter what manner of thing he was reading, Grabiner carefully placed a scrap of paper in the book and closed it. The book was older than it had first appeared, and he wished to treat it gently.

"Who's calling?" he asked deliberately by the door. If it were someone whom might easily be sent away, then he was resolved to send them away. At this very moment Nancy was in the middle of a gun battle between burglars and the somewhat ineffective police.

"Ellen Middleton, sir," came the serious, well-modulated reply. "I've brought some things for Amoretta."

It seemed clear that Miss Drew would have to wait, because Miss Middleton trumped her in terms of precedence. Although he would have often liked to, Grabiner did not actually ignore students in favor of books. With one last sidelong glance at the book, Grabiner unwarded and unlocked his door to allow the freshman student into his rooms.

 _Students always underfoot,_ he thought to himself, disgruntled.  _This used to be my sanctuary, the one place I could be sure not to be disturbed by those delinquents. I suppose now my rooms will become Grand Central Station for all the worst offenders of the freshman class. That girl gets into positively everything._

When he opened the door he found Ellen Middleton standing with her arms full of all sorts of things that he was not entirely certain he wished to cross the threshold into his rooms. There were two totebags, one over each of her arms, and they both seemed to be bulging with all manner of things: jars and bottles, socks, books, pajamas, sweaters, and the dainties required of a girl as dainty as Amoretta. Ellen also carried several hangers on which hung blouses, skirts, and one worn pair of blue jeans. Over one of her arms was draped a pink robe, and the other held a bedraggled looking stuffed rabbit.

Ellen stood in the hallway, scrutinizing Grabiner most intently. At last it became clear that she was not going to cross into his rooms without express permission, so he waved her in.

"Thank you for bringing up Amoretta's," Grabiner paused thoughtfully, raising one eyebrow, " _Things_. After the school had quieted down a bit I had planned to take her downstairs to fetch what she required, but now I see that we do not need to make a trip." He moved to take the hanging clothes from Ellen and put them away in a wardrobe that had shelves built all around it. "Amoretta is currently in the bath, otherwise I am sure she would be pleased to thank you herself."

While Grabiner had put away the hanging clothes, Ellen had divested herself of the totebags, putting them neatly to the side of the desk. The rabbit she placed without invitation between the pillows on the bed, and then she returned to face Grabiner, the robe clutched against her chest.

"I wonder," Ellen began in a tone that seemed conversational enough, despite its vaguely icy undertones, "What it was that Amoretta was planning on wearing when she got out of the bath, since she didn't take a change of clothes with her when she left last night."

Grabiner's eyes narrowed at Ellen's pointed implication and he answered caustically, "I really haven't the faintest idea, Miss Middleton. I cannot claim to have any special understanding of how my wife's brain operates. Much of the time, what she does is as mysterious to me as it is to everyone else. Perhaps she simply intended to put on the pajamas she had worn earlier. Such things have been known to happen."

Ellen frowned briefly, then said, "I'd like my robe back, please."

"Would you care to explain?" Grabiner asked.

Ellen apparently cared to explain. She told Grabiner that the robe that Amoretta had worn the night before had been Ellen's robe, since it was very clean and had been freshly pressed. Amoretta's robe was now pristinely clean as well, and Ellen wished to affect a trade of the two garments.

The problem being: the robe in question was currently hanging in Grabiner's bathroom, where Amoretta was bathing. Grabiner told her as much.

"Please feel free to retrieve it, Miss Middleton," he said, returning to his desk chair and the book that lay marked on the desk. "I wouldn't dream of disturbing my wife at the moment." He pointedly turned his desk chair so that his back was toward the bathroom door.

Behind him, he heard Ellen Middleton make a slight huffing noise, and then she went to the door to the connected bathroom and lightly knocked. She carried on a muffled conversation with the occupant of the bathroom, and at last was apparently granted entrance.

She was in there quite a lot longer than was required to simply switch one robe for another, and it became clear soon enough that the two girls were engaged in a lengthy conversation. Grabiner finished reading the perilous exploits of one Nancy Drew of River Heights, and then was left to sit with his hands folded in his lap for want of anything else to do. One minute passed, and then another, and finally he got to his feet to select another book off the shelf. He was in the mood for something dramatic, whether it was history or fiction.

His finger was poised over the spine of a particularly well-loved copy of  _Le Rouge et le Noir_ when Ellen Middleton, apparently at last finished interviewing Amoretta, excused herself quietly from the room, looking troubled. Grabiner pulled the book from its place on the shelf, then absently crossed the room to lock and ward the door again. He was just considering sitting to read again when Amoretta herself appeared, fresh from the bath, her dark hair still damp and looking even longer than it usually did, an effect of the fact that her curls were loose and wet.

She wore only the newly delivered pink bathrobe and mildly approached the desk to rummage around in the totebags that Ellen had left against it.

Grabiner turned his back on her out of politeness, but apparently she was as little disturbed by him as she had been of her roommate barging in on her while she was in the bath. She took a little time selecting pajamas, and then she mercifully went into the bath again to change. When she emerged again she was clad in pale blue pajamas dotted in a halftone pattern. She sat down on the bedside rug near his feet with a plain white shirt and began methodically squeezing sections of her wet hair. Grabiner was utterly mystified by her behavior, but thankful that she was clothed.

"What did Miss Middleton wish to discuss with you?" he asked idly, turning the book over in his hands as he watched her pale fingers busy in her dark hair.

"Statutory rape," Amoretta answered benignly, not missing a beat as she patiently squeezed her hair.

" _What?_ " Grabiner asked without meaning to, leaning forward reflexively in alarm.

"She had quite a lot of things to say about it, really. Ellen's just full of information when you want to know something, and even when you don't care to know it. Even more than Minnie, I think," Amoretta noted conversationally. "Where she comes by this information, I don't know. Maybe she looked it up in the encyclopedia? She wanted to tell me that although the legal age of consent in Vermont state is sixteen years of age," she raised an authoritative finger, "Which I made last September, that if the other partner is  _in loco parentis_ , in this case a teacher, the age of consent rises to eighteen, which I think is downright silly. She also reminded me that while we are married, our marriage has not been sanctioned or recognized by the state of Vermont."

Somehow Grabiner managed to keep from choking during this calm explanation of facts. He refused to be driven out of his own quarters by an uncomfortable topic of conversation. He had also learned by experience that if he gave her an inch by falling back, unsure of himself, she took however much space she required. The only way to face her successfully was to be utterly implacable.

By the end of her explanation he was able to remark, in a rather normal tone, given the situation, "I had not realized that you retained Miss Middleton as your legal counsel."

Amoretta shrugged eloquently. "She appointed herself, naturally. If you're wondering if I asked about all this," she affixed Grabiner with a curious eye, "I didn't," she said loftily. "I don't care," she further explained. "I think that upset Ellen more than anything. I think she's really very worried that I'll be taken to jail and my life ruined forever."

"If someone were likely to be taken to jail in such a situation, I imagine it would be me, and not you, the  _in loco parentis_  perpetrator, as it were. My imagined misconduct seems to have become a new morbid fascination of Miss Middleton's," Grabiner said dryly. "In future you should tell her that her mind should rest at ease. I have no plans to violate the law of the state of Vermont."

"I think if you take me across state lines, it becomes a federal crime," Amoretta paused, suddenly quite interested in the way the conversation was developing.

"Where do  _you_ come by this information?" Grabiner asked, for his own curiosity could be quite as morbid as Ellen Middleton's.

"Television," she volunteered candidly.

"I have no wish to break  _Federal_ law either," he finished with some sarcasm.

"Well, I would," Amoretta said defiantly.

"You have made that abundantly clear," Grabiner said, opening his book, because he wished to declare this topic of conversation closed and finished.

"I understand that law exists to hold society together," Amoretta went on philosophically, quite ignoring the fact that Grabiner obviously wished to read. "And I respect it. There are plenty of laws that function as they ought to: to protect the weak and the disadvantaged from people who would hurt or exploit them. I'm happy to uphold those laws. But if I think a law is unjust or harmful, then it is my obligation to stand against it."

"Forgive me if I don't find your motives particularly altruistic," Grabiner remarked, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, I'm not altruistic at all," Amoretta agreed enthusiastically, at last apparently having finished squeezing her hair out, and sitting back, pleased with herself. "I'm terribly selfish. I want to be happy. First and foremost, I want to be happy. And I want other people to be happy too. I want everyone in the world to be happy. I think that's incredibly selfish, don't you? I want everything, absolutely  _everything_ , there is, that there  _can be_. I won't be satisfied with anything less."

"You're really a very terrifying girl," Grabiner said very seriously, although not without the barest touch of exasperated affection.

Amoretta only smiled in response.

* * *

After the headmistress advised them of her intention to turn them out of doors for the day, Grabiner stood on the steps of the main building, frowning. The chilly breeze blew his hair around his face.

"Where would you like to go?" he asked Amoretta, his arms folded into his cloak. "That woman won't leave us in peace if we try to go against her wishes. I can take you out to lunch, if you like."

Amoretta shook her head. "No, I really would rather go on a picnic. I know it may not be the warmest day, but I do like being out of doors. I've been cooped up quite a lot since..." she trailed off and he didn't press her.

"Very well. If that's what you'd prefer, then I know a place that would be suitable," he said, looking out across the campus grounds. "Go back upstairs and bundle up well. Layer your clothing. You're weak, right now. I don't want you catching a chill."

"Yes sir," she said smartly, saluting, "I will!"

And then Amoretta was off to do as she had been told and Grabiner was left to put the rest of their picnicking gear in order.

* * *

Before they left the main campus, Amoretta was anxious to survey the damage to the accounting room. Grabiner was reluctant to escort her there at first, until she rebelliously declared she would go see the wreckage on her own if he didn't take her. Her own impressions of the scene were hazy and indistinct, marred by overwhelming impressions of terror and pain.

What surprised Amoretta the most when she walked through the open space where the back wall had once stood was the strange lack of debris. Although she had told the students of the academy that Grabiner had 'blown up' the back wall of the accounting room, as this had seemed to be the best description of the act, now that she inspected things closely, it was more as if the wall had been  _vaporized_.

Walking in soft shoes over the floor, which had melted and cooled like a strange flow of basalt, she paused to stand with one foot inside the room and one foot outside, on the dark earth, which had also been melted into something like pliable stone. Amoretta let out a low whistle.

"It's like there was some sort of volcanic catastrophe, right here in the accounting room," she observed. "Remind me not to cross you, Mr. Grabiner."

"The spell is called  _Gigant Animus_ ," Grabiner said, touching the cauterized edge of the wall with one hand. "It actually does mimic the effects of a mantle plume. Terrific heat and pressure are involved, and both must be carefully controlled. It is a difficult spell to master, and not something that a novice should attempt under any circumstances," he warned sternly. He paused, then added, "One must always select the appropriate spell for the appropriate moment. Gigant Animus is useful because although it is a heat spell, a fire spell, it is not really an explosive spell, as you have noted. The trajectory of explosive shrapnel and debris is too difficult to plot in circumstances of active combat. That boy had you as a hostage. However well I might control my spell, I have no ability to control  _causality_. Even under Kavus's shield, you could have easily been injured by flying physical matter, and I knew I could not bluff that boy with less dangerous, less effective spell. Whatever I may think of Mr. Ramsey, the headmistress was right in her assertion that he is not to be underestimated. Although he rarely exhibited his skills while at this school, that boy has the makings of a killing duelist."

Amoretta moved to stand in the clean circle of floor that stood like a strange island in the midst of the sea of melted floor basalt. This is where she had fallen when Damien had dropped her, and where she had lain when Kavus had shielded her as the spell passed over them like Armageddon.

She looked back at the familiar table, which had been pushed back against the far wall, and the chairs that had been overturned.

"Do you think this room will get repaired any time soon?" she asked, folding her gloved hands and bringing them up to rest in the hollow of her throat. "I am very fond of it. I remember the first time we sat together here, and you gave me this lecture about running for political office - all I could think of at the time was 'what an awful, charming man he is.'"

"I'm flattered," Grabiner remarked dryly, although he too turned to look at the table and the upset chairs. "Although it was only October of last year, I suppose it seems like a very long time ago," he snorted and it was something like a laugh. "Miss Marianne Amoretta Suzerain, the  _dancing_ dragon who ran for freshman student council treasurer. I have to say, of all the class elections this year, I looked forward to the freshman election least of all. Only you and Mr. Blaising were in the running. It was a Morton's fork."

"I really can dance, you know," Amoretta insisted.

"So you claim," he said and then quickly raised his hands, "And I still have no need of a demonstration." He paused thoughtfully, considering. "You won them over then the same way you won them over at your press conference: by telling them what they wanted to hear."

"You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, Hieronymous," Amoretta advised pleasantly, folding her hands behind her back as she leaned forward winsomely.

"I have very little interest in catching flies," he said shortly, and she laughed easily. He was not altogether distressed that she had laughed when he had meant to be crisp. He was beginning to become accustomed to the fact that she did not always take him entirely seriously. "In any case," he said, "I shouldn't worry overly much about the accounting room. I imagine the headmistress will arrange to have it repaired over the spring holiday. You'll be back to delivering mail soon enough."

"Good," Amoretta said nodding so that her hood bounced a little around her face. "A girl likes to feel useful," she said. "And besides, you get to know things about people when you deliver their mail. I've got my thumb on the pulse of this school," she finished her Machiavellian statement with a cheerful smile.

At this point he was well aware of the fact that there was always more going on in her strange little brain than she had cause to let on to most people. It was one of the reasons he found her mildly terrifying.

"Your finger," Grabiner corrected absently, still thinking.

"What?" she asked curiously, turning to face him.

"You've got your finger on the pulse of this school," he began pedantically, drawn out of his musings by his impossible to disregard  _lecture_ reflex, "If you attempt to take someone's pulse with your thumb, then your own pulse will keep you from taking an accurate measurement, as the  _princeps_   _pollicis_  artery runs through the thumb."

Amoretta bit her lip and admitted, "There really are a lot of things for me to learn, aren't there?"

"There are," Grabiner agreed seriously, "But you have a great deal of time to learn them, so don't feel as if you need to be in a hurry. Now, shall we go?"

They went.

* * *

As if worried for her long term stamina, Grabiner was careful to keep Amoretta on his arm for the length of their easy walk. If she was worried about her own health, she gave no sign of it, simply chatted amiably as they walked, making all sorts of observations about the trees around them.

"This is all boreal forest," she said helpfully. "All the Green Mountains are pretty much covered in boreal forest, except I think a couple of the higher peaks have some alpine habitats. It's funny, I know it seems really cold, like it couldn't possibly be springtime yet, but right now, this is really the beginning of spring here. New things are starting to be born and some things that were sleeping are starting to wake up. You know, I think a lot of people think that the whole world goes to sleep during the wintertime, but it really doesn't. There are plenty of things living hard and living well in the wintertime. These trees, for instance," she said waving an arm lightly around her, "White pine, spruce, balsam fir: they weather the snow and the storms just like they weather the sun and the rain. And then there are some birds that stay all year round, and most of the mammals too. Not very many insects and reptiles are active during the winter because they aren't very good at regulating their body temperature."

"And suddenly I'm walking with Sir David Attenborough," Grabiner said dryly, although it was clearly not meant as a cutting remark. "You have revealed your unusual schoolgirl expertise as a trail guide."

"I like being outside," Amoretta admitted. "When I was a little girl I used to climb an awful lot of trees. I got stuck in one once, and Uncle Carmine had to climb up after me. I got a spanking that night, I can tell you!" She rubbed her backside ruefully, as if the memory of that punishment were still fresh enough to provoke phantom pains. "I guess I just really feel at home outside, like I can  _feel_ the world just thrumming and pulsing around me. There's always something to see. There's always something to listen to."

"You must have grown up near a ley line," Grabiner commented. "Even as a child you would have felt it, even before properly awakening. It is a simple truth that in the wilds and in solitude it is easiest to hear the voice of the world. That is why wise men go into the desert."

"Wise women too," Amoretta pointed out with amusement, looking up at the canopy of dark needles that shaded them from the pale sun. "I guess it's true that other people can be very distracting." She paused. "But you, Hieronymous, I don't find you distracting. I can be at peace and listen perfectly well, when you're with me. I don't think solitude necessarily has to be absolute."

"I find you  _excessively_ distracting," Grabiner said, and Amoretta laughed again, but then her laugh stilled in her throat, because they had just then come upon a clearing and the object of their short hike.

Before them was an old building, half gone to rack and ruin: simple, old-fashioned, and plain. In style it was certainly old colonial, with clapboard siding that still hung on in most places. The windows that still stood in the casings had only fragments of glass in them, and the roof had collapsed in places.

As he brought her into the clearing, Grabiner indicated all of this with a sweep of his arm and declared, "Welcome to Iris Academy."

Staggering forward on unsteady feet like an excited toddler, Amoretta let go of Grabiner's arm and ran out into the center of the clearing, spreading her arms out and turning around so that the heavy cloak she wore spun out around her.

Grabiner watched her idly for a moment before going over to the half-ruined building and putting his shoulder bag as well as the blanket down against the outside wall of an old classroom. She soon came over to investigate what he was doing.

"How come I didn't know this place existed?" she demanded. "This would be a really nice place to spend a Sunday."

"Of course you are naturally drawn to condemned buildings," he noted somewhat darkly, rolling his eyes. "As to why you did not know it existed, that reason is simple: the old campus is forbidden to freshman students. To visit is a privilege of sophomores and above. It is simplest to keep freshman out of it if they simply do not know about it. That being said, I ask you do not remark upon it for the remainder of the year."

"You're not worried I'll come here on my own? Get myself into trouble?" Amoretta asked with a wry smile.

"I believe that you may find it more difficult to spend your evenings bending and breaking school rules, since I now am acutely aware of  _where you sleep_ ," Grabiner threatened with some gravity.

"I told you, I only disobey rules that I think are unjust," Amoretta said with some certainty, and a deliberate nod.

"The road to hell is positively paved with good intentions," he said, then turned from the picnic things and moved to the center of the clearing before the old school house. "Come along," he said, waving her after him. "Before we have lunch we're going to have some lessons."

If he thought she might complain about having to do lessons on a holiday, he found she did not, only obediently followed him into the center of the clearing and stood, as he indicated, about fifteen feet away from him.

"Now," Grabiner said clearly, "Draw your wand."

Amoretta pulled her wand out of one of the interior pockets of her cloak and Grabiner only barely managed to contain a groan. The wand was familiar to him, for it was one she used regularly in all classroom exercises. It was green and whippy, perhaps ten inches long, and topped with a golden star. It looked like something a very small girl would employ for princess dress-up, not like the serious tool of a nearly adult witch. He had commented on its ridiculousness in the past, but the girl seemed to like it, and it performed its duties adequately enough, so he chose not to remark upon it this time.

Instead he drew his own wand, and then stood casually at the ready. "Cast a push spell at me," he indicated simply, waving her lightly forward with his empty hand.

Amoretta shifted a bit uncomfortably from foot to foot, then shook her head. "I don't want to," she said.

Grabiner frowned slightly, and prompted, "Why?" although he was already certain of the reason.

"I don't want to hurt you," she said, and the look on her face was very difficult. She was clearly intensely uncomfortable.

"There is very little chance of  _you_ hurting  _me_ in any exchange of spells," Grabiner reminded her calmly, choosing not to be sarcastic in this instance because she was so very clearly upset. "Cast a push spell," he prompted again.

"No," Amoretta denied vehemently, shaking her head, and Grabiner could see that she was almost trembling.

"You can't," Grabiner supplied simply, and Amoretta looked up, startled, as if a very dark secret had been discovered. "Don't be so surprised by my powers of deduction," he said blandly. "It was plain to me once I consulted my records. You have attended my red magic lectures exactly one time, and that was during the very first week of school. I can't really say how I didn't notice it before, except that you are so commonly present for my blue magic lectures that the two must have blended together in my mind. Still, I can't say that I don't find it baffling that a student in good standing, near the end of her freshman year, cannot cast a push spell." He paused carefully. "You are not a stupid girl. You are quite adept in your own way. Frankly it is amazing to me that you managed to get to this point without having your deficiency discovered. The headmistress is in the habit of pairing students up for dueling lessons a few times a year. How did you survive those?"

Amoretta looked down at her feet. "I was paired with Donald for dueling lessons. He was surprised I couldn't cast a push spell then. But I didn't really end up practicing much because - well, what happened is complicated, and I'm a little embarrassed about it. He cast this big, awesome fire breathing dragon thing after telling me to duck and cover - I didn't actually see it, because I was face down on the floor, I tripped when I ducked, you see - but it was supposed to have been really impressive looking," It was as if she were hoping to earn Donald some retroactive merits for his artistic display, but as Grabiner did not seem keen on granting any based purely on her assurances that she had  _heard_ it was impressive, she continued with her explanation, "But I guess the big dragon thing would have really hurt me if it had actually hit me, so Professor Potsdam was going to give him detention. See, she thought he was trying to hurt me on purpose, when of course I knew he wasn't. I told her that, and then she wanted to give me detention too, only I had to work the booth selling candles that weekend, so I begged for demerits instead, and a deferred detention. She was surprised. She said that it wasn't particularly common for students to ask for demerits, since they're sort of hard to get rid of. She gave me demerits and deferred my detention, just like I asked, so I got a chance to work the booth at the shopping center that weekend."

Grabiner's mouth twitched briefly in recognition. "The day you stood stock still for hours, like an idiot," he said, "Yes, I remember." Then he paused and said, "The headmistress mentioned to me yesterday that you had never used one offensive spell in any of the examinations this year. You have passed every single one, but your refusal to cause any type of injury or infirmity to your opponents,  _or even inanimate objects_  is worrying to me."

"I blew up a treasure chest in the last examination," Amoretta pointed out, searching feebly for a means of defense.

"Amoretta, you forget that I was the one proctoring that examination," Grabiner remarked dryly. " _You_  did not blow that chest up. That chest blew  _you_ up."

"It still blew up!" Amoretta cried out, raising both of her arms above her head in distress.

"And I am sure you would have avoided blowing it up if it were within your abilities to have done so," Grabiner argued. "Out of curiosity I reviewed your examination records, and I noted that you regularly rely on a single method when you encounter a possibly hostile entity. And that jarred my memory. I have had, on more than one occasion, to rescue hodags and even  _other students_  from oubliettes in the dungeons. Teleportation," he finished with a wave of his hand. "You always rely on teleportation."

"It doesn't hurt someone to teleport them somewhere," Amoretta said defensively, balling her hands into fists at her sides. "They just have to sit still until they're rescued, or if they know enough, they can teleport themselves out."

"It takes a great deal of confidence to regularly teleport living targets at your age and skill level," Grabiner pointed out seriously. "A failed teleportation could easily result in a much more dangerous injury than a spark or a push. I know you understand that."

"Then I won't fail," Amoretta insisted passionately. "I'll study. I'll practice. I won't fail. I don't want to hurt anyone.  _I won't_."

Grabiner raised up one hand to calm her. "I did not meant to call your abilities into question. It cannot be denied that you have a certain facility for blue magic." The corner of his mouth twitched again. "I cannot say I have ever proctored another freshman entry exam where one of my students ended up outside, upside down in a tree."

Amoretta frowned. "Ellen teleported out of the dungeon too. She said so."

Grabiner nodded once briefly, conceding the point. "Miss Middleton is exceedingly clever. She would probably be my best student in blue magic if she did not suffer from a lack of imagination. She certainly works harder than you do, and I would say that in a classroom setting she has a better technical understanding of the theory and practice, but when Miss Middleton successfully teleported out of the dungeon, she did it with poise and control, to a safe, known destination. When you teleported, you did it with  _verve_."

"Are you complimenting me for ending up hanging upside down in a tree?" Amoretta asked him dubiously. Grabiner never complimented her for  _anything_. She dropped her eyes and flushed slightly. "Also, you know, I'm sorry for landing on you."

"Of course you are," he agreed dryly, "That was certainly a unique examination experience as well."

The spots on Amoretta's cheeks darkened slightly, as she continued, "Also, you shouldn't say that Ellen lacks imagination. She has  _plenty_ of imagination. She's been imagining  _all sorts_  of things about the two of us," Amoretta pointed out as she looked up, crossing her arms over her chest. "Besides, she's always bringing up all kinds of things that I've never thought about! She studies all five colors, and she does really well in all of them. I don't think it's fair to say that she lacks imagination."

"It may not be fair, but it is accurate," Grabiner said evenly. "As I said, Miss Middleton is a much better student than you are, but she is very driven to  _acquire and process facts_. It is a compulsive behavior, and it sometimes gets in the way of her ability to complete tasks." He paused before noting, "You can be quite the wildcat when an ill word is said about one of your friends. Keep your mind at ease. I do not play favorites. I said only what I meant. When Miss Middleton teleported out during the first examination, she performed a standard teleport to a known destination using mental recall. You performed a free teleport based purely on an understanding of local spatial coordinates, which is much more advanced technique, even if it was not carried off gracefully. Additionally, Miss Middleton cannot perform so-called 'fast swap' teleports of multiple objects to different locations."

Amoretta looked at her feet again. "Ah," she murmured. "So you noticed that I was practicing that."

"It is my business to know what you are practicing," Grabiner said, frowning. "As I am your professor. It is my responsibility to make sure that your independent research does not get you injured or killed. But all of this is quite outside my original point: you are incapable of defending yourself in a combat situation, whether it is a play-duel or a dangerous confrontation."

"But you said yourself that I could teleport them - " Amoretta protested.

"That will not work on any opponent of even a moderate amount of skill. It would not have worked on Mr. Ramsey. It would not work on me," Grabiner pointed at her with his wand suddenly, as if calling her out. "You cannot cast a push spell, so I know you cannot cast a bind." He paused and then waved his free hand at her. "Perhaps it would be easiest for you to understand if I simply demonstrated this to you. Teleport me," he said, and then pointed to a spot at her left. "From here to there."

Amoretta bit her lip again, troubled, but at last she nodded. She was confident in her blue magic. She knew she would not hurt him. She began to trace out symbols in the air with her wand, and focused her eyes on the space at Grabiner's feet, where a blue circle began to form, lettered by arcane runes. With his cooperation, it would only take a moment or two for the spell to acquire his person as the target.

But then, Grabiner side stepped, and he was no longer within the focus of her teleportation circle. Amoretta frowned and with some concentration, she shifted the focus of the spell over to where he now stood, attempting to acquire him for a second time. As soon as she had, he moved again, three steps back, and two to the right. He was more nimble on his feet that she might have supposed. She struggled to shift the focus of the spell again, and she failed, and her spell collapsed and fizzled, leaving her panting from the effort.

"You kept moving around," Amoretta protested weakly, catching her breath. Energy seemed to flow into her easily here, so she had soon recovered herself.

Grabiner raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Do you expect your opponents will very kindly stand still until you finish whatever spell you cast on them?" He shook his head. "You're still just a freshman, so you haven't had much practical work outside of simple dungeon examinations, but I will now teach you a very important lesson: a still wizard is a dead wizard, and a slow wizard doesn't fare much better. Past your third year of instruction, no one will politely make themselves a target for your convenience, even if they themselves are casting a spell. Spells cast while moving require more concentration, more discipline, but that is something that comes with time and practice." He considered her carefully. "If you are serious about using teleportation magic in combat, then you must learn how to use binds." Grabiner eyed her calmly and steadily. "I'm going to cast a teleportation spell on you now. Avoid it if you can," he said.

Amoretta tensed all at once and readied herself to move. Grabiner had given her fair warning, and she knew he would not give her another before he cast his spell. If she wanted to avoid being teleported, as he had, she would have to be light on her feet, a hostile target who denied his spells when he attempted to acquire her. He would probably not expect her to move closer to him, so that was what she chose to do, moving forward and slightly to the right, so she was not exactly in his line of sight. Before she had even come to a complete stop at this new position though, she felt something lock around her ankle, like a hand had come up through the earth to grasp after her. She looked down in alarm, but of course there was no corpse hand, only a shining band of light like an anklet made out of magic. There was another on her other ankle, and she was now rooted to the spot. Before she could begin to recover, her wrists were also braceleted, and in such a way that she could only have cast a spell with great difficulty. She squeaked in distress, but before her squeak had even properly finished she found herself rapidly transported around the clearing, first at Grabiner's back, then at his left side, and finally in front of him again, so she ended up at arm's length.

Her squeak finished and she let out a deep breath.

"A multi-vectored teleport," she said, folding her hands in front of her chest. "You make it seem  _so easy_ , like it doesn't take anything. You just  _do it_."

"I'm sure you've noticed that magic power flows easily here," Grabiner said, "And although the teleport was multi-vectored, it was not particularly long. With the way your studies are progressing, you will be able to do that within the year. It will not be easy at first, but that will come with time, as most things do when one applies the appropriate level of effort." He snapped his wrist briefly to the side, as if this were not of any particular importance. "As you can see, you were unable to avoid being teleported because I used a bind spell."

Amoretta frowned a little, and thought about it.

"I could have used an interrupt, or a disruption, or a shield spell," she said after a moment of thought, raising a single finger in protest. "That would have kept me from being teleported too."

"Each of those spells depend on your speed and your stamina," Grabiner said, leveling his wand at her again, as it might have been a pointer, "And they do nothing at all to address the root of the problem. No matter how many spells you interrupt, no matter how many spells you misdirect or ground, in the end, your opponent will still be standing, and they will still bear you  _ill will_." He shook his head briefly. "But for the sake of argument, we shall examine your strategy. Go back to where you were standing before. I will teleport you again. Avoid my spells for as long as possible using any means in your possession."

Amoretta nodded once, then trundled back to the spot where she had stood before, looking much more like a hapless child on a playground than a dueling opponent.

"Prepare yourself," Grabiner indicated and she nodded with so much force that her curls and her hood bounced again.

Now that she knew what was coming, he would have to be quick to catch her. In the end, it really did not matter if he caught her the first time, the second time, the third time, or the fourth time, because the truth was, eventually he would catch her. That was the purpose of this exercise. Still, Grabiner was not a man who was willing to give less than his best, particularly when he was trying to instill such a valuable truth.

He had begun moving immediately after his warning, circling to the right, keeping her in the center of his field of vision. He had begun to build the binding spell as he moved, tracing figures in the air with his wand and running through the words of the spell with ease and practice. Despite all this, he had only half finished the incantation to the binding spell when he was jarred by Amoretta's interrupt.

She had turned to follow him as he circled her, and her feet were about shoulder width apart, her knees slightly bent. As soon as she saw him jolted by her interrupt she was already busy casting a second spell, a long one with a complicated incantation and a long gestural component. Grabiner recognized it immediately as any suitably experienced duelist would.

_Forewarned. I will not allow it._

He built a second bind spell, even as he kept circling her, gradually closing the distance between the two of them. Amoretta was forced to abandon the casting of her white magic spell to break his bind with another interrupt. This time after interrupting him she focused on casting another white magic spell, this one with a shorter incantation. It was a sanctuary spell. As soon as she cast it, she retreated out of it, putting that space between the two of them. He took advantage of the opportunity to cast while she was moving, and built another bind.

This one was not interrupted, and Grabiner was sure that he had at last caught her, but at the last moment she painted a sigil across the space in front of her with light and blurted out an incantation as if her tongue had been loosened by spirits. Before her bloomed a rune circle of light, and his bind splashed against it and dissipated like water against glass.

 _Shield_.

She had cast a shield while moving. That was impressive for a first year student, but then, she was the girl who had teleported herself out of a dungeon and into a tree.

But she was at her limit now, that was obvious. She was panting even as she threw another sanctuary spell down and backed out of it again, taking small steps without lifting her feet out of the grass. He had now come to the edge of her first sanctuary spell, and he could not cross over it to follow her without dispelling it, but he had no need to. She would not be able to avoid him again.

This time his bind flowed like music, and he caught her before she could either interrupt him or ground the spell. He had her in a moment, and had shortly teleported her around himself four times, before leaving her in the spot he had pulled her from. After the fleeting effects of the teleportation spell wore off, she sank down onto her bottom in the grass, clearly exhausted.

He fished in one of his interior pockets and pulled out a small, round object and tossed it so it landed in her lap.

She picked it up with gloved fingers and turned it over curiously.

"Chocolate?" Amoretta asked.

"Eat it," Grabiner suggested. "It will help relieve your fatigue. You will find that wizards need more sugar in their diets than regular humans because we expend so much energy casting spells. A banana would also be suitable, or slices of apple, but chocolate is very easy to carry."

Amoretta stripped off her gloves and unwrapped the chocolate readily, taking a bite out of the ball was perhaps the circumference of a quarter.

"It's really good!" she reported happily, her cheeks flushing as she savored the chocolate. "I'm starting to feel better already."

"When sugar hits the bloodstream, it immediately improves one's mood," Grabiner said. "As for the chocolate, there are luxuries in life one finds one cannot live without. That is one of mine."

"It is a little bitter," Amoretta admitted wryly, as if such were to be expected by candies provided from his pockets.

"It is bittersweet," he corrected. "It is complex. It is  _interesting_."

She finished the bonbon in two more bites, and then he leaned down to offer her a hand. He helped her to her feet, his gloved hand against her bare one, and then said,

"You need to rest for a while. I'm afraid that I've made you overtired. Come along, and we'll have lunch."

She helped him lay out the picnic blanket on the grass near the old school building, and then he paced a circle around it, laying half a dozen spells in quick succession. When he beckoned her in with a hand, she crossed into the circle he had laid and found that far from feeling like the chilly northwoods, the space around the blanket felt like a sunny day in May. She half expected flowers to begin blooming, and was soon shrugging out of her heavy hooded cloak and kicking off her shoes. She flopped down on the picnic blanket as if it were paradise itself.

Grabiner stood slightly outside the circle of warmth and watched her.

"Come inside?" she suggested, tilting her head slightly to the side.

"I do not normally engage in picnics, Miss Suzerain," Grabiner said in reply, and made no attempt to move.

"Well, I imagine that you've at least read about them,  _Mr. Grabiner_ ," Amoretta laughed. "Anyway, I'm no great audience. I promise not to comment no matter how you behave. Come inside, Hieronymous. No one's here but me. I swear that I won't tell anyone that you're a normal human being that  _might possibly_  enjoy a picnic."

He had done things like picnic at a remote point in the past, when the sun was warm and he felt as if he owned the entirety of the world. But he had put all of that away, had put it all away when he had seen his heart torn apart in front of him and eaten. He had locked himself in a room full of books and thrown the only key into a fire.

All of this was very difficult. After that unforgivable sin: that he had lived when she had died, that he had lived when she,  _the Peerless_ , had been torn apart, he had sworn to himself that he would never share his life, never share his pain and his sorrows, never share his anguish. He would never share  _anything_ again. He had held a priceless unnamed treasure in his hands, the treasure of his heart, and he had let it all go to sand. He had had one role to play,  _one thing to do_ , and he had done it wrong. At least if he kept himself apart, he could not hurt anyone else. At least if he brought no joy into the world, he could hope to bring no further sorrows either. That was the sort of life he had consigned himself to.

But then he had made an oath. He had broken all the tenets of his life to swear that oath, had bound himself permanently to a silly little girl for not one lifetime, not two, not a dozen, but so many that they ran together like wet paint, smearing into a line that stretched off into the distant and unknown future. He had done it to save her life, because he could not bear to see her die, because he could not bear the knowledge that again he had failed to do  _the one thing_  he had meant to do. He had weighed the cost and paid the price, buying her life with his own, and now he had no choice but to share his life with her: spare and mean though it was. They were bound through his doing, and he was not the sort of man who would have tied her to himself and then denied her solace and kindness. He had responsibilities.

He knew all of this in his clear, careful, waking mind, but it did not make it any easier to accept.

But she was waiting, and he had no excuses to offer, none that the dark haired girl that sat patiently waiting on the blanket might have accepted. She said 'come in' and so he went in, sitting down on one corner of the blanket awkwardly, as he was not accustomed to sitting on the ground unless he was engaged in drawing a circle in chalk. Amoretta noticed his hesitation and did her best to smile encouragingly.

"Hieronymous," she began, a laugh in her voice as light as a breath of air, "I don't really think it's a crime for you to have a little fun."

"Fun," Grabiner echoed, frowning. "That word makes me uneasy."

Amoretta laughed, and it was like a sudden summer rain storm, a happy accident of the weather that came and went with haphazard freedom.

"I really ought to start writing down the things you say," she teased. "You're really as quotable as Kennedy."

"I'm not sure I should take that as a compliment," Grabiner replied dryly.

"I meant it as one," she assured him, then affably admitted, "I'm flirting with you."

"I had taken some notice," he said slowly. "That you do that."

"You don't like it?" Amoretta asked, a little uncertain, her brow knitting together faintly.

"I don't dislike it," Grabiner admitted quietly, then somewhat hastily added, "So long as you behave yourself."

"I always behave myself!" Amoretta cried indignantly.

" _Badly_ ," Grabiner supplied glibly, with a grim smile.

"Now you're flirting with me," she pointed out a little smugly.

"I don't think so," Grabiner replied with the haughty disdain of someone who was  _born_ feeling his authority.

"You wouldn't," Amoretta shrugged very eloquently, then waved to his shoulder bag. "Let's have some sandwiches," she suggested. "That's what a person ought to do at a picnic: eat a lot of sandwiches."

"You would be the expert in this case," he admitted, and pulled the lunch box out of his bag, "But don't become accustomed to the position."

"Touché,  _Mr. Grabiner_ ," Amoretta complimented.

There were sandwiches of three kinds in the neatly packed box: chicken, liverwurst, and tuna salad. Grabiner raised an eyebrow at them and observed,

"Naturally, she had a lunch packed for us that she might have enjoyed herself, with little concern for what we might like to eat."

"Are you a picky eater?" Amoretta teased.

"I am  _discerning_ ," Grabiner said, frowning.

"Well then," she said practically, "I'll let you  _discern_ which sandwiches you find most appealing, or perhaps least upsetting? And you can have those. I'll eat whatever is left over."

Grabiner ended up selecting the chicken sandwiches, and Amoretta soon found herself munching away at the liverwurst. A companionable silence fell between them, one broken only when Grabiner opened the thermos and poured out a cap full of a steaming beverage.

Amoretta held out her hands for it and Grabiner frowned slightly.

"It's tea," he warned, and took a deep breath of the wafting steam. "Chinese gunpowder, I should think. It's likely just as bitter to you as the chocolate. There's a bottle of milk in here as well. I imagine that's for you."

"I'd still like to try it," she said. "If it's an acquired taste, then I'll never acquire it if I don't start  _sometime_."

"There's only one cup," Grabiner protested, and he was correct. Petunia Potsdam had not thought to supply them with anything other than the top to the thermos.

"So there is," Amoretta agreed pleasantly, and Grabiner grunted something unintelligible as he finally passed the little cup over to her hands.

Amoretta blew the steam away, and then took a sip that burned her tongue. She inadvertently made a face.

"Don't like it?" Grabiner asked with some superiority.

"I don't like being  _scalded_ ," Amoretta complained, sticking out her burnt tongue to exhibit it. She patiently blew on the tea again and finally took a second drink.

Then she passed the cup back to Grabiner. She didn't give him time for a suitably sarcastic remark, saying immediately,

"It's warm and it's wet," with a laugh. "It tastes like the secret heart of something, moist and phantom sweet and a bit murky. It doesn't really taste like any tea I've ever had."

"I imagine most teas that you have had have come in little bags sold by Lipton, or some such awful establishment," he said grimly, accepting the cup back with good grace and taking a sip of it himself. After a moment, he said, "Why is it that you only ever attended one of my red magic lectures?"

Amoretta's brow knit again as she searched for a response. "Well, Professor Potsdam said we ought to explore all the areas of magic before selecting a serious course of study, so we could get a feel for what we liked. During the first lecture in red magic, you made it abundantly clear that red magic was used for destructive purposes. I have no interest in throwing fireballs or blowing things up. It takes a lot longer to build things than it does to destroy them. I don't like - " she broke off and shook her head, letting the sandwich drop into her lap. "I don't like hurting people."

Grabiner frowned. Red magic was one of the most popular courses of study at Iris Academy, and nearly every student ended up with at least a passable utility in it by the time they graduated. The channeling and use of raw power was seductive and appealing. The effects of red magic were always readily apparent, and often quite ostentatious. When one cast red spells, one looked as a fairy tale wizard looked: calling down thunderbolts from the sky, or conjuring walls of fire. Students flocked to learn it because it was romantic and dangerous and exciting: they flocked to it even though  _he_ taught the subject and he was not particularly popular. And so, in the first red magic lectures of the year he always endeavored to put fear into the hearts of the students. Red magic was seductive, but it was also very dangerous, a lesson most students needed beaten into their heads.

Of course, besides the seductive nature of raw power, there was a more practical reason students were drawn to red magic. All of them, witch and wildseed alike, had some understanding that they needed offensive spells at their disposal for their own protection. Life as a wizard was not always easy, and when one entered the wide, wild world, one ought to be equipped to defend oneself, since quarrels, duels, and assaults were not uncommon: and these were only the dangers posed by  _human_ opponents.

And so it fell upon him to instill in them a proper respect for the power they wielded when they cast red spells. It fell upon him to teach them how terrifying and dangerous the spells of evocation were, how it was easy to maim a friend, or oneself, if one did not keep total control over one's magic at all times.

In essence, that was what red magic was about: control.

It was easy to call up overwhelming power, but another thing entirely to master it.

The great spells, the terrible spells, those were for the novice to  _fear_. Let them content themselves with sparks and breezes and pushes until they had learned the meaning of control, of restraint.

Only then would he allow them to progress.

But in his zeal to cow the overzealous, in Amoretta's case he had done his job too well.

"Red magic isn't only about destruction," Grabiner corrected patiently. "It is true that the simple-minded often employ it toward such ends, but at its core red magic is simply the manipulation of energy. The headmistress is fond of saying, 'there is no good magic and no bad magic, there is only magic, and the meaning comes from how it is used.'" Grabiner looked pointedly at her shoulder, "I cannot entirely agree with her, but in the case of red magic, in the case of the magic taught at Iris Academy, she is correct. With sufficient control, red magic can be used to many positive ends. It doesn't need to be used only to harm and maim. Red magic cannot heal, but it can quench. It can warm. It can cool. It can comfort."

"I'm sure it can," Amoretta said with a gentle smile as she picked up her sandwich again. "Otherwise you would not have learned it." She took a bite and thoughtfully ruminated. At last she said, "If you think I ought to, I'll learn how to cast binds. I don't want to learn anything else, though," she warned, "No push. No spark. Nothing like that. Teach me how to use binds?" she asked. "I think, I think it would be very difficult to learn on my own."

"Nigh on impossible," Grabiner agreed, rolling his eyes skyward. He sighed with some frustration. "You really are an incredible creature. 'Teach me binds without teaching me anything else!' you say, as if it were that simple. You want to leap into reading Shakespeare without having learned the alphabet."

"I have confidence in your abilities as a professor, Mr. Grabiner," Amoretta leaned forward, amused. Then she paused as a memory overtook her. "Oh, that's right!" she said, waving her sandwich around in excitement. "Miss Raven Darkstar is utterly convinced that you were  _born_ to play Richard III," she said, trying her best to remain serious and not betray herself with manic giggles. "She wanted me to ask you if you'd consent to star in next year's fall production!"

"How very," he paused, searching for the right word, and at last finished, " _Flattering_." It did not seem to be a particularly accurate depiction of his feelings on the subject, however.

"She thought it was," Amoretta laughed helplessly into the back of her hand. "And I think you may have a new admirer, Hieronymous. She's dead set to play Lady Macbeth beside you. Has me slated for Lady Macduff. Maybe she'll rewrite the play so she can do me in herself, on stage."

"That's just what Macbeth needs," Grabiner remarked dryly, "Some sort of gory catfight, perhaps right after the scene with the bloody child. Audiences will be delighted by your ingenuity, I'm sure."

"Hieronymous, it wasn't  _my_ idea," Amoretta defended herself weakly, at last falling helplessly backward onto the blanket, consumed by her fit of silliness. Grabiner rescued the sandwich from her lap, which otherwise might have gone flying or been rolled upon.

Grabiner frowned as she enjoyed quite a good laugh at his expense. "I'm half tempted to tell Miss Darkstar that I'm willing to do it, just to force you to be publicly murdered on my behalf. But you will tell her that I gracefully decline," he said with a wicked turn of his mouth. "Alas, I have no experience acting at all. Pantomimes were forbidden at school when I was a boy: there had been some sort of heinous catastrophe in the past."

"A heinous catastrophe at a pantomime?" Amoretta stopped giggling and asked incredulously, one eyebrow raised. "What sort of catastrophe?"

"The building caught fire - " he shrugged, throwing one hand up. "How should I know?" He finished his sandwich and took a long swallow of his tea. "Are you really set against learning anything but binds?" he asked seriously. He frowned slightly. "I am rarely in a position where I must argue the merits of red magic. The headmistress's own vision for this school is one in which the students seek after the knowledge that they desire, with very little regard for a well-rounded education. As I said, she is a libertine, given to pleasing herself and seeing that others please themselves. This school could do with more discipline and order," he waved his hand briefly, as if swatting a fly or an unpleasant reality. "But that is all beside the point. I am not the headmaster of Iris Academy, nor do I ever wish to be, but I do have a very personal stake in your education. I have no wish to see you killed."

"Because you'd also be killed," Amoretta agreed, nodding seriously, although she did not sit up, but stayed lying on the blanket, staring up at the sky.

Grabiner's reply, when it came, was fiercer than she had anticipated. "That is not the reason," he said sharply, and her eyes were drawn to his face in surprise. His mouth was a hard line, as if he were thinking about difficult things. "You are gentle and genuine, and you have no wish to harm any other person, even if that puts you in danger. You're an idiot, a terrible idiot, but your sort of idiocy - you would stand in the rain without an umbrella, getting soaked to the bone, perhaps for no reason at all. I would - " He turned his face away from her and finished lowly, "I would bring you an umbrella. I know I could not compel you to come in out of the rain, not so long as you felt you had some reason to stand in it, but I would bring you an umbrella and stand with you. I think perhaps," he said slowly, "That you have a sort of madness, but it's a madness," he paused carefully, "That I wish to protect."

Amoretta had rolled on her side to look at him as he had spoken, sitting there with her unfinished sandwich in his lap. She raised one slender finger and traced a series of lines in the air, movements she had learned by heart very early on, and spoke the short incantation to the spell that she meant to lay.

_I abandon myself before your eyes. Look upon me, and know. Communion._

It was  _empathy_  inverted, and not a spell that they regularly learned in classroom exercises, but one she had sought out herself.

 _It seems dishonest,_  she had thought to herself as she had paged through heavy books looking for variations on the spell,  _To ask for someone else's feelings, without revealing your own._

As she finished laying the spell, the only thing she felt was a slight shiver that ran down her spine. Then she closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath, and thought about what he had just said to her, what she felt about the man who would say such things. It was very easy to be honest in one's own heart, even when that heart was shared. It was like turning her back to him and writing her feelings in dark letters on a blank wall, where he could read them clearly, over her shoulder - only they weren't really words. They were too mixed up for that. They were messy and complicated, tumbling over one another like scruffy, unruly children, all vying for attention at once.

The effect on Grabiner was immediate. He turned his face away from her, passing a hand across his eyes. His shoulders shook once before he threw out a hand and in a trembling voice dispelled her.

"Please," he said in a low voice, "Do not do that again."

"Hieronymous, I - "

" _I cannot_ ," he answered her sharply, and the pain and the despair in his voice were evident. "It is not something - It is not something meant for me.  _I cannot._  Forgive me.  _I will not._  This cannot be allowed - "

"Whose permission do you need?" Amoretta asked with a smile that was wistful and sad, as bittersweet as the chocolate that he liked.

His eyes flashed in anger as if she had challenged him. " _No one's_ ," he denied angrily, and then he had taken her hand, the hand that lay closest to him, the hand that bore the slender band of gold that matched the one he wore like a brand burned into his flesh. He had captured her hand, and he held it captive, bringing it to his mouth as he closed his eyes and bowed his head, letting her cool fingers rest against the skin of his face.

"I love you," he said, and it was as if each of the words were bitten off, hard and mean and naked. "I didn't intend to. I never meant to. It was not something that I wanted, but now I find myself unable to deny you anything. It is awful and I am wretched and this is not something that you deserved, however idiotic you may be. I cannot offer you anything. I have nothing to give except for my protection and a pitiful, self-indulgent kind of comfort. I did not even have the will to turn you away, as I ought to have. In the beginning, there might have been a way to avoid all this, if I hadn't been so selfish."

Amoretta's laugh was pale and quiet with exasperation. She got to her knees and moved close to him. He still had her hand captive, as if it might have been a tree he had lashed himself to in a hurricane.

"Hieronymous, I don't want to avoid any of this. I never did," she said, shaking her head lightly before laying it against his shoulder. "If I could do everything over again, I would do it just the same. I would choose all of the pain, and the fear, and the terror, and the happiness and the laughter, because they're what led me here, to be with you. I love you," she said very earnestly. "And you may think I'm silly. You can call me an idiot as many times as you want. You can tell me that I'm wild, that I'm terrible, that I'm unreasonable, and that I never listen to anything you say. All that's probably very much true. I am young and silly, but there are some things that I understand, and I understand that I'm much more terrified of facing a life without you in it, without you here with me, than I am of all the devils and curses and misery in the world. I wouldn't wish for anything different," she finished very simply. "I'm very happy now."

He squeezed her hand so hard she thought he meant to break her bones, and he tensed like he was going to spring up, but at last he relaxed, and again spoke very lowly.

"You will have to be patient with me," he cautioned. "I cannot go about this quickly. I must have time to think." He raised his head at last and looked at her, where she leaned against his shoulder, and his eyes were very honest as he said, "I really find you quite terrifying."

Amoretta's smile in return was brief and private. "You can take the time that you need, Hieronymous. We really have all the time in the world. Forty-nine lifetimes of it, at least." She leaned against his shoulder hard, as if she could push through the physical barrier that separated them, so that they ceased being two things, but became one combined thing.

"It's as if you dropped from heaven," he said quietly, "Right into my lap."

* * *

After that somewhat messy declaration, Amoretta finished her liverwurst sandwich feeling that everything really was right with the world. Grabiner had brought some grammar texts with him in his bag, but she begged off studying, just for the day, and since he was feeling much relieved and rather charitable, he consented. And so he sat with a book open in his lap and pretended to read, and she rolled over onto her belly with a book open in front of her and pretended to read, but really they just sat together, thinking and enjoying the quiet.

It wasn't all quiet, though. Amoretta had been right about the birds that remained even during the winter. Some of them were perhaps new arrivals from down south. They practically filled the trees, singing and courting, and chasing one another about. Since neither Grabiner nor Amoretta were commonly loud or striking individuals (although they certainly could raise Cain between them, depending on the circumstances) birds were soon on the ground in the clearing, hunting for their own lunches.

Amoretta's eyes swept over the gathered songbirds briefly, and then the corner of her mouth quirked up as she tugged on Grabiner's sleeve, pointing unerringly with her wand.

"That's a Northern Cardinal," she said, "Some people call him the redbird, for obvious reasons. I've always thought of him rather like a monarch of the forest. See his little coronet?" she asked.

"If he's a cardinal, then that's a miter, not a coronet," he disagreed, eyeing the bird with mild distrust.

"Cardinals don't wear miters, Hieronymous," Amoretta said, clicking her tongue. "Archbishops wear miters. Cardinals wear galeri or zuchetti."

"Regardless of whether they wear miters, they certainly don't wear coronets," Grabiner objected.

"Well these cardinals  _do_ ," she said importantly, then her smile quirked again. "Really, he reminds me a little of you, Hieronymous."

"And why is that?" Grabiner prompted with a raised eyebrow.

"I suppose because he's such a gentleman," Amoretta laughed quietly into the back of her hand, so as not to disturb the assembled birds. "Although he has quite a temper, let me tell you. That bird will fight his own reflection, and that pretty song of his? That's a warning to trespassers that they ought to get out of his home if they know what's good for them. But he's very kind to his wife," Amoretta tugged on Grabiner's sleeve again for emphasis. "Northern cardinals mate for life, and when they travel, they travel together. When she's nesting, he watches for trouble, and he brings her food, and he'll drive off even a bird as big as a jay or a hawk if he thinks she's threatened."

"That's a very sentimental way of looking at it," Grabiner pointed out seriously. "That bird defends the nest because eggs are in it, and eggs are his way of passing on his genes to the next generation. It has been argued that that is the only purpose  _for_ life: the perpetuation  _of_ life."

Amoretta shook her head slightly, and would not be influenced. "I'm sentimental because  _he's_  sentimental," she said, "And his lady wife is too. If it were just about perpetuating his genes, if something happened to her, he would take another mate, but that's not what happens. Life is more complicated that you're making it out to be," she teased, then grew serious again. "For purely monogamous birds, if they lose their partner, they mourn for the rest of their lives. You could even say that they start to seek after death. That's not practical, that's sentimental. That's the heart of that brilliant red bird, the cardinal."

Grabiner looked away and the silence was uncomfortable. "Then perhaps you shouldn't compare that bird to me. I am not quite so selfless and altruistic, nor am I so brave and willful."

 _That girl,_ she realized immediately.  _He's thinking about that girl who was killed._ Petunia Potsdam had called her _the Peerless._

Amoretta bit her lip. "Hieronymous," she began quietly, "You don't have to be alone. I don't want you to be alone."

Grabiner frowned and studied the treeline. "Sometimes I believe you have a very mistaken impression of my character, and that worries me. That is the danger of making up romances to suit the tastes of other people. Don't confuse the pretty air-castles you spun for your public with reality. I am not a fine man. I am not even a dependable one. I am no one's hero. In fact, in most stories I would plainly be the villain. That's clear from Miss Darkstar's obsession with seeing me play Richard III."

"Sometimes I can't tell if you're English, or just  _horrible_ ," Amoretta said definitively, sticking her tongue out at him for emphasis. "I love  _you_ , the real, flesh and blood  _you._  You're really very awful. I wonder if we went on some sort of Newlywed game show, and I accurately guessed your favorite color, would you believe I had a proper picture of your personality then?"

"You have no idea what my favorite color is," Grabiner scoffed haughtily. "We have had no occasion to speak of it, and you might be clever, but you're not telepathic."

"I know what it is, Hieronymous," Amoretta insisted, leaning her cheek against her palm as she studied the birds in the grass.

"Very well, Pythia," Grabiner said, leaning forward slightly. "Please dazzle and impress me with your vast knowledge of my character."

Amoretta didn't look up from the birds, only stated calmly, "Your favorite color is indigo. It's the color that you can find hidden somewhere between blue and violet. People have difficulty defining what that word means. It's almost like an imaginary color. You know, not many people can distinguish true indigo in the visible spectrum, not if you also define cyan and blue and violet. It also happens to be the color of my eyes, incidentally."

It happened in a moment: the sound of the book dumped unceremoniously from his lap, and then he was on his hands and knees next to her, putting a firm hand under her chin so he could turn her face up to the light. The sun glittered across eyes as deep and rich as Persian indigo, their color as brilliant and intense as lazurite.

It was, perhaps, the first time he had really looked into her eyes.

He swore, then let her go, and retreated to a far corner of the blanket.

"You didn't know," Amoretta observed wistfully. "You really didn't know."

"That is obvious," he growled, turning his back on her.

"But I am right," she prompted. Grabiner's sudden movement had scared the more skittish of the foragers away, but some still remained, and she now found that the birds were watching the two of them curiously, as if they were the subject of their own nature documentary.

"You are correct," he admitted quietly, although he would not turn to face her.

Amoretta sighed and decided to try changing the subject.

"What ended up happening with Minnie and Kyo?" she asked, "So much has happened since then, it really slipped my mind."

She thought about Luke's healing scars and fading black eye. She supposed that Kyo's broken nose was likely on the mend as well.

"I suppose you now expect me to supply your hungry mind with gossip," Grabiner remarked dryly, recovering himself, as she had hoped he might.

"I'm not asking for gossip," Amoretta denied. "Just information. I was intimately involved with the situation, I'd like to remind you."

"Because it was  _trouble_ ," Grabiner noted with some force. "And wherever there is trouble, I am afraid I will always discover that you are in the thick of it."

"I am a responsible, civic-minded, duty-bound citizen," Amoretta agreed. "Now tell me what happened."

Grabiner sighed, and then apparently resolved to give her what she asked for, in moderation, of course. "Mr. Katsura was given a one week suspension, to be served out following spring break. He was also warned against further harassment of Miss Cochran and by extension Mr. Blaising, and was explicitly directed  _to stay away from you._  Of course, it seems unlikely that anything will actually come of that."

"Why is that?" Amoretta asked curiously.

"Mr. Katsura's parents have withdrawn him from Iris Academy," Grabiner said, shrugging his shoulders briefly. "They did not take kindly to the way I handled him prior to his suspension, or so they told the headmistress."

"Oh Hieronymous," Amoretta worried, sitting up at last. "You didn't  _do_ anything to him did you?"

Grabiner gave her a grim smile before shaking his head. "As much as I would have liked to, no, I did not  _do_ anything to him besides lecture him. I told him in no uncertain terms that his behavior was entirely unacceptable. He copped something of an attitude with me, and I made it clear that I was not interested in listening to his sorry excuses. He had none worth listening to, at any rate. He never tried to deny anything," Grabiner said with distaste, shaking his head slightly. "Do you know, that vile little prat was proud of all the things he'd done? He was so _self-satisfied_  - If it had been left in my hands, that boy would have been expelled, and I'd have put in a request that his magic be sealed. He has a vengeful, unstable personality, and he is entirely unwilling to listen to reason or to accept responsibility for his actions. No matter what his talents may be, that is not the sort of boy who ought to be taught the skills that will allow him to blow up whatever he pleases."

"Whether you teach him or someone else teaches him, if he really wants to hurt other people, to threaten them and control them, then he will learn what he needs to know," Amoretta said, shaking her head.

"That's a rather pessimistic stance," Grabiner observed with a sidelong look.

Amoretta shook her head again, "It's not pessimistic, I'm just trying to diagnose where the problem really is. The way you keep someone from being violent is not by taking away his weapons, it's by teaching him that violence is wrong."

"Forgive me," Grabiner delivered another dry command. "I sometimes forget who I am talking to."

"I don't see how you can," Amoretta said with a small smile.

"I don't see how I can either," he admitted, then turned toward her again to look at the birds that were still digging about in the grass.

"I wonder where he learned it: that preservation of self and disregard for others," Amoretta wondered aloud. "At home, I suppose, or possibly at whatever school he attended before Iris Academy."

"At home, I imagine," Grabiner noted darkly. "The Katsuras are a witch family, and as far as I know, Mr. Katsura was taught exclusively at home before coming to Iris Academy. That is not altogether uncommon. I suppose now he will return to being home schooled, unless they choose to enroll him in another of the arcane finishing schools."

She leaned forward and hugged her knees, pensive. If Kyo Katsura was simply going home then there was a very good chance that he would grow into a man who possessed and coveted and controlled, the final form of a boy who prized ownership and obedience. She hoped he was done with Minnie Cochran, but she worried for anyone else he might encounter, friend or foe. He was passionate and he was spiteful, the sort of person bound to either kill someone else, or be killed himself. He was just the sort of person to end up involved in a fatal duel, or a crime of the heart.

Grabiner broke through her troubled thoughts with a confession of his own.

"I grew up in my father's house, but I never saw him," he said quietly. "It was an ancient rambling house, out in the Pennines," he shook his head briefly, as if recollecting that her knowledge of English geography might be a bit lacking. "That's in the north, in the hills. It's very scenic country, not terribly different from this," he waved his arm to indicate the surrounding hills. "Although it's mostly unforested moorland, not your boreal forest. The house has been the family seat for generations, although it feels as if more people have died in it than lived in it. The foundations might as well have been laid in bones," His eyes narrowed, because his memories were not the fond recollections of childhood. "It's the family seat of the Viscount Montague: Inglewood. What a fanciful name that is, conjuring images of a stately Georgian home at the end of a beautiful park," he snorted. "That name was an invention of the twelfth Lady Montague, my great grandmother, in a failed attempt to make the place seem less dreadful than it actually is. It's original name is more honest, if less picturesque:  _Dernegrave._ The damned place has been a tomb since before I was born. My father has certainly never used it for anything other than a repository for an unwanted child." Grabiner frowned savagely. "Oh, it wasn't as if I was  _entirely_ unwanted. He wanted an heir, someone to carry on the family name, someone to use as a chip in the game he's spent his life playing. What is a son but the chance at living a second life?" Grabiner smiled very bitterly. "I saw him perhaps four times when I was growing up. He never spoke to me, or paid me the slightest attention until I went away to school. He never cared to know me except as a reflection of himself."

Amoretta had crept close to him during his embittered monologue and leaned against his shoulder.

"What about your mother?" she asked gently.

He laughed and it was hard and tired. "Like you, I don't have a mother, although I suppose I'm more like Zagreus than Dionysus," he said, and his smile was very grim. "My parents were married when I was conceived, a trial marriage of one year and one day. In a way, I wonder if it wasn't something like a business transaction. When I was born, my mother gave me into the keeping of my father. I want nothing to do with her."

Grabiner looked up at the sky, as if expecting rain. "When I was a very small boy, my nurse used to play piano in the evenings. She had a very little girl, an awful little thing that everyone called 'Button.'"

"How Dickensian!" Amoretta interjected warmly, and this evoked the ghost of a smile from Grabiner, who nodded once before continuing.

"Button used to get into everything and tumble down the stairs head first, and I was always sure that she had killed herself, but Nanny never minded. She would say 'Button is stronger than she looks. Don't worry yourself about her.'" He paused, his brow knit together. "I suppose," he said, "I suppose you're rather like Button. I rush to the scene, always expecting that you're dead, but somehow you're in good health and good spirits. It's like your life is charmed."

"Was Button a very nice little girl?" Amoretta asked anxiously. "You were fond of her?"

"I  _hated_ her," Grabiner denied with an honest laugh, but this time there was less pain in his voice than there had been before. "She was a terrible bother, always wrecking things. She could never sit still, and always made the most horrible noises when she was upset, just like she was being murdered. She always had a snotty nose and she clung onto me like ivy on an oak tree."

Amoretta cringed a little. "As nice as all that?" she asked, wincing.

"She was dreadful," Grabiner responded, "But she was my playmate, and I suppose my friend. I often think that Button and Nanny were the last two people at Inglewood to honestly care for me. When I turned seven my father decided I was too old to have a nurse and had the two of them sent away. He made that decision without having seen me in two years. I had tutors after that, until I went away to school." He frowned. "I haven't thought of Button in years," he said.

"I bet she's thought of you," Amoretta said with certainty.

"What makes you say that?" he demanded.

"Because I would if I were Button," Amoretta answered simply.

* * *

The rest of the spring vacation passed away easily. True to his word, Grabiner kept her studying grammar for hours at a time, and when he was not making her parse sentences he had dragged her off to the dungeons for more practical lessons. Before he would begin to teach her how to cast a bind, he was determined that she learn to get out of one, no matter what position she was caught in. These lessons were very physically exhausting, because he was relentless and merciless and bound her in most uncomfortable positions, demanding that she dispel herself no matter the circumstances.

But he was careful to keep both his eyes on her, and when he sensed that she really could go no more, lessons ended abruptly, just as they had begun, and she was free to recuperate at her leisure.

In this strange hour after his confession, he was not really any more physically demonstrative than he had been before. He had demanded time, and he clearly needed it. When he spoke to her, he was much the same as always, and rather than making her feel cold, this made her feel warm.

 _He's loved me for a long time,_ she thought, because she was the sort of girl who thinks such things.

Somehow, despite very little outward change in behavior, Petunia Potsdam seemed to sense that things had changed between them, as if she employed a hidden third eye. It wasn't as if she said very much about it - Grabiner's tumultuous expression when she tread anywhere near such a subject saw to that - but she just looked so supernally pleased with herself, as if she had eaten a whole pet store full of canaries, that it was impossible to mistake the fact that she  _knew_.

 _Is that why she sent us on the picnic in the first place?_  Amoretta wondered.  _She's really terribly good at recognizing people's weak points, and estimating their breaking strain._

At night they slept tied together by the wide red ribbon, and the nightmares Amoretta feared did not plague her.

It was strange to spend hours in the familiar halls of Iris Academy when they were mostly empty due to the spring vacation. There were a few hangers on, it was true, but there were less than a dozen people on the campus during the holiday. It created a strong sense of family among the inmates who had remained at school, and Amoretta developed a habit of popping by the rooms of the students who remained, just to give them a smile and see if they wanted company.

Most of her time, however, was spent in the company of her husband, whether they were reading together, or he was endeavoring to teach her something, or he was simply listening to her as she chattered. When he felt he could, he would share a carefully guarded morsel of his past, which she would devour with gusto. It was through these halting discussions that she discovered he liked music, likely thanks to Nanny and little Button, who had learned to play a little before she had been deported. She also discovered that he had learned to play the flute due first to obstinacy on his part, but that his obstinacy had eventually blossomed into genuine love of the instrument. He also revealed that, on occasion, he enjoyed wine, which she thought quite unusual for an Englishman.

"I'm not very fond of wine," Amoretta admitted.

"I assume not, since you've never had any," Grabiner had said crisply. "You may be a delinquent, but I somehow doubt you are a teenage alcoholic."

"I'm not," Amoretta agreed primly. "I've had wine at communion."

"You're Catholic?" Grabiner asked with some surprise, turning toward her where she sat at his desk.

"You know, Episcopalians also celebrate the Eucharist," she pointed out, "And Lutherans and Methodists and even some Baptists."

"I am aware of that," he answered back a trifle sharply, but she paid him no mind.

"To answer your question, I'm not anything," Amoretta said with a smile, leaning her cheek against her palm. "But I'm  _interested_ in practically everything."

"Most people hold communion as a sacrament," he commented. "I don't believe you're supposed to partake of it to satisfy your own curiosity." His words were perhaps an indictment, but his tone was warm and faintly amused. He was now well-used to the fact that she would do what she liked when she liked, with no regard for authority. Perhaps it was a bit satisfying to hear of her thwarting someone other than him.

"Well," she said practically, "I didn't tell them that I wasn't an honest supplicant, so how are they to know?"

"You would have made a splendid heretic, I think," Grabiner observed, clearly amused. "They could have burned you in the city square." Then he shrugged lightly. "If you are interested in actually learning about wine, I will endeavor to broaden your horizons in the future. If what you've had is 'communion wine' at some protestant village church then your experience with wine is very nearly the same as your experience with tea."

"You could begin teaching me now," Amoretta suggested teasingly, but he dismissed this thought with a sharp flick of his wrist.

"Absolutely not," he said. "If I did such a thing, Miss Middleton might well come after me with an ax."

"Ah!" Amoretta brightened triumphantly, "You  _are_ afraid of her."

"Perhaps I simply do not want to have to explain why I had to subdue an angry student who came after me with an ax," he responded simply.

Halfway through the week, Grabiner disappeared from campus in the morning and reappeared after lunch, bearing with him a small trunk. It was a very pretty trunk, of dark leather with brass buckles, and of a size even Amoretta could manage with a little difficulty.

There was really no obvious place to put it in the room filled up with books, and so Grabiner patiently moved a few stacks of books from one corner to another, and turned up a place just large enough to slot the little trunk.

"There you are," he said with a brief wave to the trunk. "You can't simply leave your things in totebags for the remainder of the year. I guessed that that would be large enough for your needs, but if it isn't, I'll go buy you a train case or something." He waved vaguely at her totebags, "It is my understanding that women generally require quite a lot of luggage."

"Says the man who owns his own Library of Congress," Amoretta returned like the professional she was quickly becoming from having had so many sparring matches with Hieronymous Grabiner. "It  _is_ nice," she admitted, pulling her totebags over to the side of the trunk and settling down to unpack. "And this'll do pretty well in terms of space, I think. I really didn't bring much in the way of clothing when I came to school. All of that's really in these tote bags or hanging up in the wardrobe. I think the only things that are still downstairs in my dorm room are my books. I could bring them up, if you'd like to read some more Nancy Drew," she baited with a wry smile.

Grabiner waved her off with a roll of his eyes, because he was on his knees in front of his own trunk, the one that contained most of his worldly possessions that were not the printed word. The trunk was in some mild disarray, owing to the circumstances of its last opening, but Grabiner soon set it to rights, and came away with the small marquetry box before he closed and latched the trunk again.

He brought the box that was covered by its patchwork of inlaid wood over to Amoretta, and knelt to offer it to her seriously.

"My father meant this box to be in your keeping, so I'll now give it back to you." He paused and his voice rose slightly as he delivered a dire warning, "However, you will not even consider opening this box if you are unsupervised, is that clear? There are some dangerous artifacts in this box, and you could easily do us both great harm."

Amoretta accepted the box tentatively, and laid it down in her lap on top of the sweater she was busy folding. "If they're so dangerous, then why not keep them locked up yourself, Hieronymous?" Amoretta asked, worried.

"Because they were meant for you," he answered simply. "I trust you to keep them safe."

He stood and crossed the room, turning so she could only see his back, as if there was something incredibly interesting to be discovered on the far wall.

She smiled fondly at his back and very carefully tucked the box into her trunk.

"Thank you, Hieronymous," Amoretta answered very sincerely, but he only waved her off idly, not bothering to turn around.

As she continued to pack away sweaters and pajamas and underthings, Amoretta thought about the box, and the circumstances of its arrival at Iris Academy.

"Hieronymous," she asked curiously, "Do you by chance know the person who delivered this box? She seemed to know you - "

Although he didn't turn around, Amoretta could  _hear_ him frown. "Juliette the Jackdaw," he answered shortly.

"The Jackdaw?" Amoretta asked, clearly confused.

"Juliette Lore," He corrected himself with a dismissive wave of his hand. "'The Jackdaw' is her appellation," he paused, as if realizing she required a fuller explanation, as she was a wildseed girl who had not come from witch traditions. "Wizards and witches of any notoriety come into possession of unique epithets over the course of their lives. If your current ability to find trouble is any indication of your adult propensities, you are sure to end up with one yourself. The Jackdaw is quite accomplished with the magic that governs travel, and besides that, she has for years been the primary mistress of Aloysius Grabiner, the Viscount Montague," he said his father's name with a great deal of disdain, "He is, lamentably, a very notable figure. She earns some distinction just by association."

Amoretta's cheeks flushed pink and she stammered, "Ah, but she told me that she was your father's courier - "

Grabiner shrugged once and turned toward her, and his expression was difficult to read. "And so she is," he said. "The positions are not mutually exclusive in my father's house."

"But she's so  _young_ ," Amoretta interrupted again.

"Which is how he prefers his wives and his mistresses," Grabiner said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "She's nearly my age. He's kept her for years, so she must be entertaining. When I was a boy he rarely kept a mistress for more than a year or so before he tired of them." He shook his head and waved his hand again. "Oh, I never saw them, not at Inglewood, but the servants were always full of gossip, as servants are. He really is a disgraceful character, even for a wizard."

"If he likes her so well, then why doesn't he marry her?" Amoretta asked, pressing her teeth against her bottom lip.

Grabiner shrugged. "I wouldn't know, nor do I care to know. Perhaps he has asked her and she's refused. Perhaps he's unwilling to make her Lady Montague because of her humble beginnings. Perhaps it is simply because he cannot abide being tied down. I really think he'd sooner be dead than married."

Grabiner had given her much to think about, and Amoretta nodded, bowing her head slightly as she focused on folding her clothing.

He came over to watch her put her things away idly, and let a hand fall to rest on her head. "If you are ever so unfortunate as to meet Aloysius Grabiner, and you will  _not_ if I have anything to say about it, I warn you to be on your guard." He paused to look down on her and he was very quiet before adding. "He's very fond of pale girls with dark hair."

Amoretta looked up, startled, but Grabiner had already gone away, out of the room, leaving her put away her possessions in relative quiet.

Thoughts of Grabiner's childhood filled her mind after he had left, pushing out any worries she might have of the dubious character of her father-in-law.

* * *

The next notable incident at Iris Academy happened the following Saturday, the day before the students were slated to arrive back at school for the short term before the summer holiday. Although it was a Saturday, since there were very few students at the school, Amoretta was excused from her duties as a mail carrier. Allowances, at any rate, were not delivered during school holidays.

But whether or not she delivered it, the mail still arrived as the mail ought to.

When she and Hieronymous Grabiner were summoned to the headmistress's office, it was on account of the mail: or rather, on account of two letters, one addressed to her, and one apparently addressed to her husband.

Although there was no return address, the headmistress had divined almost immediately that the letters were from Damien Ramsey.

Grabiner's face was grim as he looked at the two letters lying neatly on the desk of the headmistress.

"And now it's come to this," he said darkly.

The headmistress nodded once, "I imagine it is as we feared," she said. "But we shan't know until the letters are opened and read. I suppose you'll want to read yours first, Hieronymous."

Grabiner scowled. "I have no reason to read that letter," he said, picking the letter up between a thumb and forefinger, as if he could pinch the life out of it. Amoretta saw that rather than bearing his name, the letter was addressed only to 'the Blind Icarus.' "I am already certain of the contents, so I would rather not permit that boy to anger me further than he already has. I do not negotiate with murderers and fiends."

And then before either Amoretta or the headmistress could say much of anything about it, he had lit the letter with a brief word and calmly held it as it burned.

Petunia Potsdam shook her head, sighing. "Well, I suppose it is your prerogative." Her eyes swept to Amoretta. "I do hope you'll read your letter before Hieronymous puts it to the torch. It might not be the most pleasant experience you ever have, but we need to understand Mr. Ramsey's intentions."

"His intentions are plain," Grabiner growled, extinguishing the letter expertly when all that remained of it was a corner. He threw the remaining corner unceremoniously into the headmistress's waste bin. He raised a warning finger to Amoretta. "If you had any sense, you wouldn't read that letter either, as it comes from a liar and a scoundrel. Whatever comes will come, and we'll face it head on. You'll get no good out of that letter, I assure you." He shook his head, clearly angry and frustrated. "But I know you're already set on reading it, and that nothing I say will dissuade you."

"Hieronymous - " Amoretta began, biting her lip.

"Don't apologize to me," Grabiner denied bitterly, turning his back on the both of them. "It's your letter and you have every right to read it. It concerns your future. Far be it for me to hold you from it."

Amoretta bit her lip and studied Grabiner's back, trying to think of something to say. She turned her own letter over in her hands and looked at him again, raising a tentative hand to touch his shoulder, but Petunia Potsdam only silently shook her head, and Amoretta reluctantly withdrew and moved to sit in one of the pretty floral arm chairs that stood before the headmistress's desk.

The headmistress leaned across the desk and passed a slender letter opener with a handle of polished wood into Amoretta's hands, and the sidelong look she gave to Grabiner's back indicated she thought the girl might need to use the miniature dagger to subdue him after the contents of the letter had been read.

After taking a deep breath, and with some trepidation, she slit open the letter that was addressed only to 'Amoretta.'

 _My darling,_  it read, and Amoretta's fingers instinctively tensed against the heavy parchment, wrinkling it. Her shoulder had begun to hurt.

_I hope this letter finds you well, or as well as can be expected, considering I left you in the care of that horrid old man. You will forgive me for my hasty retreat, my own, for at times discretion is the better part of valor. I had other battles to fight that evening, with more terrifying enemies than that friendless recluse. I am sorry that I could not take you with me, but circumstances being what they are, I believe that at the moment, the safest place for you is Iris Academy. Let that old dragon guard my treasure well. When the time comes to have you, I will have you back, and not simply as little Amoretta, but as the Grand Duchess Marianne Amoretta Ramsey Balam, and you will eat your fill from platinum dishes and sleep on pillows stuffed with the dreams of lesser mortals. Quite a change from dreary little bed at Iris Academy and dinners of bland chili, I'm sure!_

_But, my darling, what is well does not always come easily. I have been away from my home province since my birth, and there is much to be done here before I will be ready to collect you. Although I returned to find myself in relatively good standing, things have been somewhat unsettled since my father's untimely death. The crown that is rightly mine by birth I must fight for, and fight for it I shall. I have, fortunately, the support of some of my father's most trusted advisers and while my enemies are not few, you should not worry your tender heart about my safety. I am fully capable of reminding these curs of their places. I am, of course, the only son of the Grand Duke Balam, baptized in fire and reared in Eden. I will reclaim my throne, and once I am appropriately settled I will return to claim you._

_You see, my own, you have very little choice in this matter. You are mine, and you have been for ages now. I adore you. I worship you. That is quite an accomplishment for a little girl from the countryside of New Hampshire, isn't it? You have the worship of one of the Grand Dukes of Duzakh. You will come to love me in time, for how could you not? I imagine there will be a time, not so very long distant, where the only word you will be able to think of is my name._

_So content yourself for now playing house like a little school girl. I am a patient man, and quite ready to forgive all your transgressions. Let that bitter old fool keep you safe. I would not trust anyone else in the world with the job. I will come for you when the time is right, and you will come to me because that is your joy, your honor, and your place._

_I will keep you appraised of the situation here, as it develops._

_Until then, I remain faithfully yours,_

_Your devoted husband,_

_Damien Ramsey Balam_

As she read the final lines of the letter, Amoretta jolted up as if she had received a strong shock. Near hysteria, she waved the letter around as if it might have been a flag, although whether it was a flag of surrender or a flag signalling a cavalry charge was not clear.

" _What is this?_ " Amoretta demanded, her voice rising in keen panic.

Petunia Potsdam rounded the desk to the spot where Amoretta stood prancing and nearly shrieking, and effortlessly relieved her of the offending letter.

"May I?" she asked without raising her voice.

Amoretta got hold of herself long enough to nod, and then wrapped her arms tightly around herself, as if she could squeeze the discomfort from her body. Her shoulder hurt awfully.

Petunia Potsdam sat on the corner of her desk and briefly perused the letter. She was apparently unsurprised by the contents.

"It is as we imagined, Hieronymous," she said at last, looking up at the back of the other professor, who was standing very still.

" _Of course it is_ ," he answered, and his voice was curt and poisonous.

"But what is this?" Amoretta asked, the panic in her voice causing her words to tremble, "What does he mean, saying he's coming back for me, calling himself my husband?"

"By law," Petunia Potsdam said slowly and carefully, "Old law, incontrovertible law, he is. By your own choice you accepted his suit, you wore his token, you ate of his bread, and now you are marked by him. By all the laws of devils, and the laws that devils do abide by with mortals, you are his wife."

Amoretta sat down in the floral chair again and drew her knees up to her chest.

"But how is that?" Amoretta began unsteadily, hugging her own knees. "I'm  _already_ married. I'm married to Professor Grabiner - "

The headmistress smiled and it was grim. "Yes," she said, "Normally, being married protects a mortal from such suits, but I am afraid your marriage with Hieronymous was unconsummated. This fact made you more vulnerable to Mr. Ramsey's advances than if you hadn't been married at all."

Amoretta turned very pink despite her distress. Grabiner spoke sharply, although he did not turn around.

" _That is not a matter for public discourse,_ " he said with some violence, and Petunia Potsdam frowned at him, but said no more.

Amoretta had already begun to cry, feeling beaten upon by all sides, and she struggled to gain control of herself so she could understand the situation she now found herself in.

"My marriage to Professor Grabiner - "

It was Grabiner who answered, at last turning to look at her, curled up in the chair and feeling miserable.

"It still stands," he said, and it was clear that he was minding his temper only with difficulty, for fear his eventual explosion would only make things more difficult for her. "There is nothing that boy can do to change it, no matter what he may claim."

Amoretta's brow knit in confusion.

"Then I - " she began uncertainly.

"Currently have two husbands," the headmistress supplied calmly, folding her arms over her chest. "Yes, that would be the long and the short of it."

" _But I don't want to be married to Damien_ ," Amoretta denied with some force.

Petunia Potsdam smiled pityingly, and patted her rather ineffectually on the back. "And yet you are," she said. "I am afraid you are not the first girl who has found herself married without her consent."

"Can't anything be done?" Amoretta asked, and the back of her mouth tasted like cold salt. She was going to be sick. She knew she was going to be sick.

The headmistress looked troubled, her mouth set to a thin line. "We could ask for an inquiry," she said, "Because it is true that he did mark you against you will, but such cases have stood in the past."

Grabiner had come to stand behind her chair, and laid one of his hands on her shoulder, over the curse burn. Amoretta trembled.

"It is best not to attract the attention of the Magistrates," he said, and his voice was very heavy. "They will cause her more troubles than they will solve."

Petunia Potsdam nodded once, briefly, as if agreement with Grabiner on this one point.

But Grabiner was not finished.

"What the headmistress neglects to tell you is that something  _can_ be done about this, and it  _will_ be done. If the boy is killed," Grabiner said grimly, "Then you will no longer be his wife. You will be his  _widow_."

" _Hieronymous_ ," the headmistress called him out with a grimness of her own, "You  _cannot_ mean to duel that boy. He is in Duzakh, and you haven't passed through the Spiral Gate in  _years_ ," she reminded fiercely. "If you go to your death, then that girl dies as well," Petunia Potsdam said, throwing out a finger to indicate Amoretta, who was still curled up in the chair. "What a fitting way to protect her," the headmistress finished with venom.

Grabiner's own voice rose in anger. "I have no intentions of running off toward my own death, madam," he said, gripping the back of Amoretta's chair and leaning forward. "I am not an imbecile. But I will never," he gritted his teeth, " _Never_  allow that monster to put his hands on her again."

Far from angered, the headmistress smiled fondly at that, as if her wrath were spent. "Oh Hieronymous, I never imagined you'd give her up without a fight," she laughed. "I trust you to keep her well, as best can be managed." Her eyes moved to Amoretta, who had leaned her head against Grabiner's arm. "This will not be an easy trial for you, my duckling. It will be difficult. There may be times when you wish yourself dead. Best bear in your heart and your mind that if you die, so does he," she said, briefly flicking her eyes upward to Grabiner, whose face was very difficult to read. "Let that be your strength. At times, it may be your only strength," she finished wistfully.

Amoretta squeezed her eyes shut. "It all seems to have been so impossibly easy. If I could do all that accidentally, without even thinking a thing of it, then why aren't all girls carried off by devils?" she cried. "I never even  _kissed_ him."

"I am afraid the simplest answer is because devils don't want them. It is very uncommon for a devil to take a mortal woman for a wife and not a sacrifice. Of course, there's a great deal of folklore concerning how a girl might turn away the suit of a devil," the headmistress admitted, "But it is rarely taught because although it seems simple enough for a devil to carry a girl off, they almost never do. Devils prize their bloodlines and value their birthright. Generally devils marry other devils, so they can beget children that grow stronger with each generation. The world of devils and demons is quite brutal," she said, "As you might imagine. There is little room for romance in the courts of Duzakh."

"But then why choose me?" Amoretta asked, rubbing her forehead with both her hands.

"If he wants you, then he wants you for a reason," the headmistress said, as if there could be no doubt. "But what that reason is, remains to be seen."

Amoretta bit her thumb and closed her eyes tightly.

Whatever the reason might be, it remained unseen.


	12. Ten: Hostages to Fortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
> 
> Francis Bacon

They were both quiet as they returned to his (their?) rooms on the second floor of the main building. Amoretta said nothing, but she was grateful of the fact that when she had asked, he had taken her hand firmly, as if she were a little girl who required help crossing the street. He did not let go of her until they were safe in the familiar, bare comfort of the room that was walled by books.

He locked and warded the door, sprinkled his salt, and then briefly looked over his shoulder at her, where she stood behind him, her arms wrapped around herself. She looked lost.

"Sit," Grabiner said. "And show me your shoulder."

She sat mutely and pushed back her capelet, her eyes unfocused, but trained on her feet. She pulled away the dressings from her shoulder almost mechanically, although she could not help but wince as she did so.

He frowned.

"I told you to come to me when you're in pain," he said, his voice very low.

Amoretta nodded, pressing her lips together until they were white. "I'm sorry," she said and she meant it. She was the sort of girl who apologizes when she has been hurt. "It's just been so much. I haven't really been able to think. I feel a little sick."

The wound was angry and red, and still looked fresh, although by now it was days old. The dressings were wet. It had bled again.

Grabiner patiently set his fingertips against her skin, arraying them around the wound like the points on a star. He struggled with himself over whether or not to speak before he began the spell.

He spoke.

"It's his way of exercising control over you," he said, and his voice was so tight it was like cloth twisted so many times it gives the appearance of steel. "The mark, the dreams, the pain, and now this letter. He's certain that if he assaults you relentlessly, that eventually you will accept him. He doesn't care if your mind and your will are broken in the process. Perhaps he even expects them to be. He wants you docile, so you won't be able to resist what he wants from you. He's been cultivating this image in your mind of Damien Ramsey the devoted protector since the moment he met you. You are," here Grabiner sighed and finished perhaps differently than he had intended, "Who you are, so you never once suspected that he was the one  _creating_ the torments he protected you from."

"What do you mean?" Amoretta asked, her brow knitting together.

Grabiner brushed his left hand across his forehead briefly and laughed. It was a hard laugh, a little frantic, a little exasperated. He kept his right hand on her shoulder.

"You still don't realize it, even now," he said, and his voice wasn't bitter so much as it was resigned. "The letter you wrote for him during freshman initiation, that dreadful letter that turned up delivered to me instead, did it never occur to you that he was the one who left it among my things?"

"But he said - " Amoretta interrupted, distressed.

"And we have established that he is a liar and a scoundrel," Grabiner interrupted grimly. "I know what story he gave to you, because he told a similar thing to me. I didn't really consider it at the time. The story seemed reasonable enough, but of course, the third party, the one who stole the letter and gave it to me, that figure was entirely fabricated. That boy created a situation where you would be distressed, and then he 'rescued' you from it."

"Oh," Amoretta said weakly. "I suppose that makes sense."

"I don't have my hands on any other circumstances that fit into this pattern, other than the most glaringly obvious," he gently pressed his fingertips into her shoulder. "But I am sure there were others."

It was impossible to miss the fact that Amoretta went pink and ducked her head.

"What is it?" he prompted, feeling a little worn around the edges.

"Oh," she began haltingly. "It's just that, earlier, I guess in February some time, some of my underthings turned up," she swallowed so hard it was more like a gulp, "Well, in the quad. Some sophomore boys were playing catch with them."

Grabiner's tone was stiff and terrifying when he demanded, "Would you care to repeat that, please?"

Amoretta covered her face with her hands in embarrassment, "No, I would  _not!_ " she cried with certainty. "It wasn't even  _cute_ underwear. It was kitten underwear, like what a little kid would wear. I only have one pair." She shook her head, as if determined to be truthful, "Well, two pairs. I just like them because they're cute, but not like, underwear cute. They're kitten cute," she was sniffling and rambling somewhat incoherently now. "Anyway, after that happened, Damien came up to me, all concerned that I was being bullied," she sniffled again as she sobered a little. "But, how did he know? I hadn't told anyone, and it had just happened. Even if he saw boys throwing kitten panties around, he couldn't have  _known_ they were mine." She paused and then one of her pale hands gripped his elbow tightly. "Do you think it's that obvious that I wear kitten panties? I mean, that you could tell just by looking at me?"

" _Amoretta_ ," Grabiner broke through her distress with a single clear, cool word. When he had the full attention of her large, dark eyes, he continued. "This was another situation that the boy concocted so as to provide you comfort. He wanted to shame and embarrass you. Is that not obvious?" His tone turned dark and slightly accusatory as he demanded, "Why was this not brought to my attention?"

Amoretta ducked her head again, embarrassed. "I talked to Professor Potsdam about it. She's the one who, well,  _returned my panties_. She cast a spirit echoes spell on them, and it turned up a lot of responses. Too many, really," Amoretta shook her head. "They were all muddled up, so we couldn't really tell anything about the person who might have taken them in the first place. I guess it was like a crime drama, when the murder weapon has got  _too many_ fingerprints on it." Amoretta folded her hands in her lap. "Professor Potsdam and I talked about it and we decided it was best not to tell you about it, since, well,  _sometimes you have a temper_  - "

Grabiner snorted, but not in good humor.

"Very well, Amoretta," he cut her off. "I understand." He frowned. "Lacking evidence, it would be difficult to know whom to punish. Of course, it is possible to simply punish  _everyone_ ," he pointed out.

"That's why we didn't tell you," Amoretta lamented, but Grabiner waved her off with his free hand.

"I imagine it hasn't occurred to you," he began seriously, his eyes on her heavily, "That Mr. Ramsey's flight from Iris Academy was rather  _well-timed._ "

Amoretta bit her lip.

"What do you mean?" she asked uncertainly. Everything had happened so quickly -

"Since Miss Cochran came forward and admitted outing the secret of our marriage to the public at large, I do not intend to lay that transgression at Mr. Ramsey's door," Grabiner said. "But please keep in mind that he did not move to act upon the possession of that girl's soul until the morning that the news of our marriage was the prime item of student gossip. He knew that you would be facing public ridicule. He knew that you would be upset and vulnerable," here Grabiner looked away, and his voice was thick with shame and anger, "And he counted upon the fact that I would blame you for everything." He closed his eyes before continuing. "It is clear based on what you have told me that Mr. Ramsey was aware that you were married from the time of late January, but he was not sure  _who_ had married you. At first he was angry, because he thought he had missed his chance at you, but then," Grabiner continued haltingly, "But then when it became clear that your marriage was not consummated, he knew he still had a chance - a better one, perhaps. So he came to you with apologies and platitudes, and you took him back. He was waiting, Amoretta," Grabiner said coldly, opening his eyes to look at her again. "He was waiting for the information he needed so he could twist the knife. When the news began to break, the night previous to his flight I suppose, he knew he had to act. There were quite a few embroidered rumors about our relationship floating around the academy that day, Amoretta. I am sure you heard some of them yourself," his voice was very carefully controlled. "I cannot swear to it as truth, but I would not be surprised if Mr. Damien Ramsey had not authored one or two of them himself."

Amoretta trembled.

"What does he want from me?" Amoretta whimpered. It was terrifying to know that someone she had trusted had taken such great pains to torment her. It was a betrayal that left her feeling even sicker than she had been before, because Grabiner was correct in all that he had said: Damien had never played one false note from the very beginning of their relationship, because  _all_ he had played were false notes.

"He wants you to fear him, and to love him," Grabiner said grimly. "If such a thing as blind worship and dependence can be called love." He briefly raised his fingertips from her wounded shoulder and let his hand rest on her head. "Do not worry," he said quietly. "I will allow neither."

Amoretta nodded slowly, as his words sunk into her skin. Then she raised her hands to pull his from the top of her head down to the line of her cheek, and she leaned against it.

"I don't love him," she said quietly. "I never did. I guess it scares me to think that I might have, that I might have if I hadn't already been in love with you."

When he spoke, his voice was equally quiet. "I'd like to sound virile and triumphant and declare that I would never let you do such a thing, never let you love such a beast as that wretch of a boy, but I know that I have no power in the world to stop you from doing what you've set yourself on doing." He paused, and when he spoke again it was with bare, honest emotion. "So I am glad that I am the one you chose."

* * *

Grabiner kept her nose to the grindstone every free moment of the day. If it was not drilling in Latin then it was lessons in how to emulate Harry Houdini taught in the dungeons after regular classes had ended. She was grateful for his care and attention, because she knew that one of the reasons he worked her so hard was so she would have no time to dwell on the elements of her situation that she could not help. It was a strategy that worked well enough. Every night she went to bed so tired that she did not stew about her problems.

But of course, there were times when she  _had_ to dwell on them.

On Sunday night she visited the girls in their dorm room and shared the secret of the letter with Virginia and Ellen, after swearing them to discretion on the matter. It would come out eventually. She knew it would. It was impossible that it would not. The fact remained that she was not ready for it to come out  _now_.

Virginia was unhappy, but notably silent. Ellen had quite a lot of things to say, but she no longer suggested that the police ought to be called on either Grabiner or Damien Ramsey. She was not even terribly surprised by the news that Amoretta had two husbands, one of whom was a bad penny: unwanted, but determined to keep turning up.

She did say that she thought that Amoretta ought to have some recourse to protest a union that she wanted no part of.

Amoretta bit her lip. "Professor Potsdam did say that we could call for an inquiry," she said. "But Professor Grabiner said that he thought that it would cause more problems than it solved."

Ellen had nodded slowly at that, thinking.

"I think he's probably right," she said. "I did some reading over the break," she said. "About custom and marriage and law," she flushed a little at Amoretta's inquiring look, "For my own curiosity," she said defensively, then ducked her head, admitting, "I've been worried about you." She shook her head briefly. "So far as I can tell, you only call for an inquiry if there are no other options. Even if you're the victim, if the Magistrates are involved, who knows what they'll turn up. They're keen on doling out punishments too."

It was Virginia who spoke up. "It's the rule of fear," she said. "That's the core of the law. You're both wildseeds, so you can't be expected to know about law and government and all that stuff, and I'm not gonna claim that I'm some kind of expert, but there's one thing you learn when you're a little kid, and that's that you do as you're told so far as the law is concerned, or you disappear. That's the rule of fear." She shook her head. "It's not like a lot of people are put to death or anything. It's that their magic is sealed and their minds are wiped. They disappear from the witch world. Even if you see them again, they're not the person you knew before. They say that if you do something awful enough, they don't just wipe your mind, they  _do something_  to it, so you can't think properly any more."

"That sounds like a lobotomy," Ellen said quietly. When Virginia looked confused, Ellen explained. "They take a long needle and they go in through your eye," she touched the corner of her eye with an index finger. "They use a mallet to drive it through the bone, because the bone is thin there, and then they drive the needle into your frontal lobe. They cut it away from the thallus. It's like," she frowned, thinking. "It's like they want to cut you away from your  _self_. They used to do it to all sorts of people who were inconvenient to society: criminals, the poor, mentally handicapped children, young women, minorities, whoever people in positions of power and control wanted to be rid of. It was considered  _humane_ ," she frowned, clearly angry and disgusted. "They don't really do it any more, thankfully, not in the mundane world, but they were still doing it, even up through the seventies."

Virginia had become excessively uncomfortable during Ellen's calm explanation of transorbital lobotomies, and squirmed in place. When Ellen finally finished speaking, Virginia went on.

"I dunno how they do it, I just know that afterwards you're left to get along on your own, as best you can. We're really lucky that we live in the Free Nations," she said, leaning back to study the plain white ceiling. "Here there isn't any central government to tell magical folks what to do, outside the wishes of the tribal councils. I mean, there are laws of conduct, but they're based on tradition."

"They're socially enforced," Ellen interjected.

Virginia nodded, "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. There're still the international laws, you know, the five abominations, the codes of behavior, the velvet curtain - "

She paused to explain but Ellen was already shaking her head, "We know. That's what they call the oath of secrecy, that the witch world never be revealed to the mundane world: the velvet curtain. We read books."

Virginia shrugged with a brief grin. "Yeah," she said, "I'd  _heard_." She shook her head. "Anyway, those international laws, they're enforced by the Council of Magistrates. That's who Grabby didn't want to get involved, and who ran the trials that Ellen read about. You really don't want to attract their attention unless you absolutely have to. Otherwise you might end up, well - "

"With a lobotomy?" Ellen asked directly, and Virginia looked grim as she nodded.

"Probably not as bad as that," she admitted, "But they might have wiped her mind or sealed her magic. They do that if the person is considered 'a danger to themselves or others.' The Magistrates don't kill people or anything, not really," she said, "I mean, I dunno that I've ever heard of anybody killed on account of  _anything_ they've done. One of their tenets is supposed to be that life is held sacred, which is why they don't really kill people."

"They alter their memories," Ellen said. "Or they wipe them entirely. Or they give them lobotomies."

Virginia nodded again. "That's pretty much it. The Council of Magistrates is also responsible for the world spell that keeps the velvet curtain in place. It makes mundane people forget specifics about witch folk. Their minds get confused about it. They really don't remember anything magical for any amount of time, and that's including us," she said. "That's why we can go to the mall in robes and all. People see us, and if they remember us later, they just think that we're weird kids, not  _magical_ kids."

Ellen had looked away during this explanation and Amoretta watched her with concern. She knew that things had not been going well between Ellen and her family. Their relationship had been strained before the velvet curtain had fallen between them.

"Anyway," Virginia said with another shrug, "The Free Nations don't have any sort of national ministry or congress or council or anything, so most laws are a lot looser here. You don't need anybody's approval for anything. You can study what you want, I mean, so far as you're not researching the five abominations, and mostly people do whatever they like without worrying much about what people think. Of course, that means life's a little woolly. You hear about duels and stuff, sometimes even fights and brawls, but we have traditional rules for most everything. If you don't abide by tradition, then you're ostracized. That's how things work here." She made a waving motion with one hand. "Some parts of the world, they think of the Free Nations as the wild frontier, like we're all lawless savages. The people who do live here, well,  _we_ like it," she said proudly, puffing out her chest a little, as if she had thought of the idea of the Free Nations her very own self. "Together the Free Nations have enough clout that nobody from the old countries can really push us around. A lot of witches live here - a lot of famous ones too, some that have run off from other places, because outlaws and vagabonds can live here fine, so long as they live by our traditions." She stopped her gleeful patriotic tirade to seriously remark, "But the Council of Magistrates? They rule with an iron fist. The only good thing is that the Council isn't headquartered in the Free Nations. They're over in Europe somewhere, Bern or Rome or Prague or some place. I dunno. We've got some Magistrates tasked to us," she said with a nod, "But there're only a few of them and a lot of people in the Free Nations, not counting all the mundanes in North America. As far as I understand it, the Council of Magistrates doesn't really try that hard to keep the witches of the Free Nations at heel. We're a bunch of lawless savages right?" Virginia said with a laugh. "So long as we uphold the velvet curtain, they don't push us very hard. But it's still bad to attract their attention," she warned. "They like to make examples out of people."

Amoretta leaned forward, cupping her chin in her hands. "I wish they taught us some of this stuff in school," she said.

Ellen said, "They do, starting next year. I guess they don't teach freshman because they don't expect us to get in trouble with the law right off." She paused, "Maybe they should reconsider."

"Well," Amoretta said slowly, "When I started at Iris Academy in September, I never imagined that before my first year of school was finished I'd be married," she grimaced, "Twice."

* * *

Grabiner was in a growly mood as March came to an end and April began, and so Amoretta resolved to spend her days studying green magic, both to give him some space, and in hopes of broadening her own understanding of the healing magic that was being used to tend her wound. She liked green magic. It was both a calming and exciting thing to study. It was wonderful to be able to bring tangible comfort with her hands, although she still lacked the experience and discipline to control advanced healing spells.

Her own traumatic experience the night Damien had fled the campus had made her acutely aware of how vital an understanding of green magic was. There were times when the thin threads of green woven by skillful fingers were the only things that held a person back from death, and she wanted very much to hold back the hands of death. She had come so close to the terrible void it was as if the smell of it still clung to her skin. She wanted to keep others from it, if she could.

So she studied hard from her books, and carefully tended the little plant that had begun to grow in her own clay pot, one of the projects undertaken by Petunia Potsdam's green magic students.

Although Amoretta was not under his feet during the day, Grabiner regularly checked in on her, to make sure that she was holding up, and was not in pain. She knew Kavus was with her, even when he did not show himself, but somehow it was very steadying to hear Grabiner's voice.

Of course she really didn't hear his voice, because it wasn't as if he left his classrooms and stalked down the hall to find her, to the horrified amazement of all the students in her green magic class and the delighted glee of Petunia Potsdam. Instead, once or twice a day she felt him gently push against her mind, a request for Farspeak.

 _All right?_  he would ask.

 _All right,_  she would reassure him, and that would be that.

He did not push and he did not pry, but he was true to his word. He was always there.

Although Amoretta had been much troubled by the revelations that Grabiner had shared with her about Damien's behavior, his steady presence in her life was very calming, so much so that when the first of April turned up she had the heart to play a trick.

It wasn't a very wicked trick, but the fact that she was willing to play a trick at all said much about how close they had become. The Amoretta of January could not have imagined playing a practical joke on Hieronymous Grabiner. She had lived in something like fearful, worshipful awe of him.

Now he was someone upon whom she was willing to play jokes. She was also in a unique position among the students of Iris Academy in that she thought she might play a joke on him and live to tell the tale.

With this in mind, she very carefully switched the contents of two of the bottles in the bathroom, so that Grabiner's conditioner was replaced with her own. Since he took his showers first thing in the morning, and she took her baths at night, it was an easy thing to accomplish without suspicion.

On Tuesday morning he emerged from the bathroom with beautifully glossy hair that smelled of strawberry yogurt.

Amoretta complimented him on it immediately, sitting on the bed as she slowly pulled on her socks, lingering over them so she had more time to watch him. She savored the triumph with some glee, looking both pleased and smug at once.

"I suppose you're impressed with yourself," he said grimly, pulling on his cloak.

"Very," she admitted with a delighted giggle. She was the sort of girl who serves one strawberry jam instead of raspberry jam, and the crows over the joke she's played.

"You ought to have learned by now that I'm a not a man to cross," he said seriously, advancing on her while she sat giggling helplessly. He laid a heavy hand on her left shoulder and she shivered.

Then he had turned away from her abruptly and seized his hat from the bedside table.

"Enjoy your day, Miss Eye Strain," he said with some amusement.

Amoretta looked down at her lap to find that he had changed the color of her robes from their mellow gray color to a retina punishing neon green. Looking at her own lap, she saw stars and had to avert her eyes.

"Hieronymous," she wailed, "You've got to change it back! I won't be able to get anything done today! I'll get headaches just being  _near_ this color."

But he had already gone.

* * *

Amoretta tried unsuccessfully to return her robes to their rightful color before class began, but all she managed to do was cause them to begin to play rickety-sounding music that might have come from a very decrepit organ-grinder's box. She sat huddled in her desk as her robes ground out "The Old Grey Mare" disturbingly, in minor key.

When Petunia Potsdam came to class, plant in tow, and discovered Amoretta's predicament, she spent some time attempting dispel Amoretta's robes, because otherwise she was a walking class disruption. Between the two of them, they did manage to get the robes to stop playing upsetting music, but their attempts to either remove the color-changing enchantment or to cover it over with another enchantment failed utterly. In the end, Amoretta's robes were flashing like a strobe light at a rave and Petunia Potsdam had to cover her with one of the green magic lab's clean drop cloths to keep her from causing seizures among her classmates. So distressed was everyone by the unrelenting onslaught of color that Professor Potsdam didn't even feel particularly like springing her own April Fool's joke on the class and instead spent the day teaching as normal, after dejectedly explaining her own prank. It was all very tragic.

The color of Amoretta's flashing robes was so violent that it was still partially visible even through the drop cloth, but having a sheet thrown over her reduced their heinousness enough that the headmistress and the other students could actually progress with their work, instead of staring at Amoretta in horrified revulsion.

Grabiner finally dispelled her robes when she returned to their rooms that evening after class, because he certainly did not want to inflict their unwholesome color on himself. After he had dispelled her so easily that it was laughable, she laid down face first on the bed, feeling exhausted. The flashing robes had wrought a great strain on her nerves.

"Remind me never to play a prank on you again," she muttered into the blankets.

"You may find it hard to believe, but I was a schoolboy at one point," he reminded her as he took off his hat and tossed it on the bedside table. "No one survives schooling without learning how to play a few tricks."

The thought of Grabiner as a schoolboy was overwhelmingly charming to her, particularly the idea of him as an elementary school student in short pants, (short robes? did young wizards wear short pants? she was going to pretend they did, even if they did not) perhaps with Button attached to his leg. Amoretta sat up, her emotional distress instantly eased by the thought of her husband in an upsettingly embarrassing situation.

He saw her sit up and put both hands on her flushed cheeks and giggle, and warned, "Do not tell me what you are thinking. I have  _absolutely_ no desire to know."

She kept giggling to herself, although she did not volunteer what she was thinking about, as per his request.

At last she asked, "Did you receive any compliments on your fantastic hair?"

Grabiner grimaced briefly, so Amoretta knew that he had. "Only one," he said shortly. "A glowing remark from Miss Darkstar."

Amoretta dissolved into giggles again.

"Watch out, Hieronymous," she warned, rolling on the bed as her silliness consumed her. "I think she's really set her cap for you."

"Your sense of humor is overwhelmingly sophisticated," Grabiner commented dryly. "But I am not altogether concerned. I already have one shockingly awful girl in my life. I have no room for another."

Amoretta was well-pleased to have been awarded such an impressive accolade.

"I ought to remind Raven that you're a married man," Amoretta teased.

Grabiner rolled his eyes toward the ceiling as he shrugged. "Given her flair for the dramatic," he said, "I am sure the fact that I am married makes me more appealing rather than less." He paused as if suddenly struck by a bolt of awareness from a higher power. "Good lord," he said, "I hope that girl never meets my father. He'd court her just to make my life as unpleasant as possible."

"Oh, Hieronymous," Amoretta laughed weakly. "I'm sure he wouldn't. You haven't talked to him in years, have you? He's probably become a little exaggerated in your head."

Grabiner's eyes were narrow when he spoke.

"You don't know Aloysius Grabiner."

* * *

Amoretta was standing at the edge of a gorge, the stones painted pink and red with the fading light of day. The lip of the gorge was as tattered as the hem of a very old skirt, ragged and uneven and worn out. Far below her she could hear the rush of unseen waters as they pounded against old stone. Although she stood very close to the edge, she could not see the silvery waters below even when she leaned dangerously forward. The gorge was wide and deep, so deep that the interior was lost in shadows although the sun still hung low above the horizon.

She shivered.

Before her was a bridge, a covered wooden bridge from earlier times. Amoretta had seen such bridges often enough, due to her New England childhood, but this covered bridge was impossibly long, stretching from the lip in front of her to the far distant cliff on the other side of the gorge. She could not understand how the bridge could support its own weight, since it had no girders or suspension that she could see. It ought to have folded up on itself and fallen into the dark abyss below.

Peering into the tunnel of the covered bridge, Amoretta could see a small square of light at the other end, a promise of warmth and safety after a perilous crossing.

Grabiner stood at her back and urged her forward.

"I'll be right behind you," he said. "You go on ahead."

Amoretta bit her lip because she did not want to disappoint him. The old wood of the bridge was dark and worn, decaying in some places. It groaned and creaked in the wind, and Amoretta could see narrow chasms in the floor where pieces of wood had simply fallen away.

He urged her forward again and so she took a deep breath and set foot on the bridge.

She tried to go forward bravely, although the bridge groaned and swayed with the wind, and the timbers of the floor were moist and slimy under her bare feet. She made it all of a dozen steps when could bear no more and she looked behind her, for reassurance.

Somehow, in the space of twelve steps she had gone an incalculable distance. When she looked behind her, the solid ground she had left seemed as far off as a dying star, and when she looked forward, she could no longer see the square of light at the other end of the bridge, as if night had fallen while she labored forward.

Grabiner was nowhere to be seen, as if he had been a ghost or a mirage. She suddenly had the terrible thought that he had never existed at all in this world, only been a desperate and beloved figment of her imagination.

The wind moaned and the timbers of the bridge cried out as they began to crack and pop from the strain. Amoretta tried to go forward, but found her feet stuck to the spongy, moldering ground, as if they had rooted themselves there. All around her was the wet smell of rot, the familiar charnel smell of decay.

She had nowhere to go. She had nowhere to be. She had no one to be.

All she could do was sink down on her knees and cry, shuddering with every sob that shook her body, her bones feeling as dry and old as the limbs of a dead tree.

But then she was being shaken, shaken even as she cried, and as she came to herself she realized it was Grabiner who was shaking her, since his hand on her arm was by now so familiar.

 _Did he come back?_ she wondered, confused.  _But this isn't a safe place. He shouldn't be here. Not here, never here_  -

"Amoretta," Grabiner's voice was firm but insistent, "It's all right now. You're awake. You're awake. You're safe."

Still on the edge between dreams and waking, Amoretta huddled closer to him and tried to stop crying, as it was obviously making him upset. She felt his arm come around her and he squeezed her once, tightly.

"It's all right," he repeated steadily. "You're safe."

Amoretta sniffled as she came more fully awake, her head against Grabiner's chest, their bound arms pressed against her chest out of the necessity of their closeness.

"I had a nightmare," she confessed weakly.

"I gathered that," he answered, his voice quiet and even in the darkness. She could not see him, but he was there. She could feel him. She could hear him. He  _existed_.

"I thought that," Amoretta began uncertainly, sniffling, "I thought that it wasn't supposed to happen any more, not with you here with me. I thought that they would stay away - "

Grabiner did not let her go immediately, but held her still. It was one of the small comforts he could provide.

"I don't think you were haggarded," he said quietly. "I think what you had was a regular nightmare, which is not particularly surprising, given the stress you've been under lately. A dream warden can keep away the enemies that come from outside, but not the ones that come from inside." He paused thoughtfully before adding, "You can tell me about it if you like. It might possibly make you feel better. Talking about nightmares often lessens their terror because you can begin to understand why you dreamed what you dreamed."

Amoretta chewed on her thumb pensively for a moment. The tangible feeling that he was there with her, the physical, material evidence of his commitment gave her troubled heart the courage it needed to relate the nightmare.

She did so haltingly, and although she was afraid at first, she found that he was correct. The longer she talked about what she had dreamed, the less power the dream seemed to have over her.

In the end, he said, "I would never send you ahead on a dangerous path. I would go first, and you would follow after. If you insisted on going first, then I would let you, but I would never let go of you, not for a moment." He went on, and his voice was heavy with the burden of his sins, both real and imagined. "I have learned a hard lesson," he said haltingly. "I will not let you walk alone, Amoretta."

Somehow, the way he said her name during difficult times like these was sweeter than a thousand diminutives and endearments. It was gentler. It was more sincere. She trembled and clung to him as hard as she could, gripping the front of his pajamas and pressing the side of her face against his chest.

"Sometimes, I'm afraid of the future," she confessed, trembling.

"Everyone is," Grabiner answered her, his voice still quiet. He squeezed her one last time, as if reassuring himself that  _she_ existed, before easing her back onto her own pillow. "But you shouldn't be. The future is a transient thing. It's always on its way to becoming the past." He was silent for a moment before continuing. "I don't want you to be hurt any more," he said. "I am not really a very wise man, or a practical one, or a brave one, but if fate is the thing that stands in our path with intentions to harm you, then I will put my shoulder to fate and turn it aside."

"You are a brave man," Amoretta argued, pulling their hands to her chest again. "The bravest I've ever met," she insisted, "And the kindest." She heard a low noise in his throat as he prepared to deny her, but she insisted. "I don't care what you say about it. Call me a fool. I know what I know. I would trust you with  _anything_ ," she let herself linger over the final word before she added wistfully, "I did."

"You  _are_ a little fool," he admitted and she heard the bed linens rustle as he shook his head. His fingers, bound to hers, pressed against them briefly and she felt the warmth of sustained contact. "But it seems I will never have enough of you, you terrible little fool." He sighed, and although the sound was tired, it was not heavy. "Go back to sleep," he advised. "Perhaps you will dream of better things."

She settled against her pillow and endeavored to do as she was told, listening to the quiet, even rhythm of his breathing.

Eventually she slept, but in the morning she could not remember any of her dreams.

* * *

Early Friday evening Grabiner found himself face to face with a strange delegation.

It was Luke Phifer and Donald Danson who appeared at his door like unwanted trick-or-treaters. Although neither of them were strangers to his Saturday detentions, it was the first time either of them had done something so audacious as to knock on his door.

He frowned very severely at them, but while Luke took half a step backward, Donald was entirely unruffled, as if he feared nothing under heaven.

"Hey," Donald said nonchalantly, as if he always addressed Grabiner so casually. "We're here to see Amoretta. Would you get her?"

 _I was right,_  Grabiner thought testily to himself.  _Now I will never be rid of them._

"Very well," he said with a parting glower and retired to fetch his wife, who sat studying at his desk. He gave her a look as he passed, a look that said more eloquently than words,  _Do not dare invite them in._

Accustomed by now to his moods, Amoretta only rolled her eyes as she gave a little shake of her head.

At the door, Donald grinned at her, offering her a hearty thumbs up and Luke overcame his wariness of the departed Grabiner to crowd in behind Donald.

"Hey Fiddler," Donald said. "What's the rumpus?"

She gave him her own grin and a return thumbs up. "Same old same old," she replied.

"Logan was thinking that you needed some cheering up," he continued easily, "Since things have been a little rough, lately."

The way Donald said it it was as if she had suffered through a lot of detentions, or failed to pass an exam. He was easy and casual and familiar, as if calling for her at Grabiner's door wasn't anything remarkable at all. Somehow his sunny, devil-may-care disposition made her troubles seem trivial, as if they would pass away as easily as the rain.

"So he was thinking maybe we'd have another round of bingo," Donald went on, "And you could call the numbers."

Amoretta brightened at the invitation, but put the question to Donald, just to be sure. "I won't play, all right? He knows that, right? It just isn't fair, you know? But I don't mind calling. I'd like that very much."

Donald nodded, wrinkling his nose as he grinned, "I know, I know. Nobody wants to play against the Fiddler anyway," he laughed, then leaned forward to poke his head into Grabiner's room. "Logan specifically wanted me to invite you too, big man. Said he had 'some vital information that you might find valuable,' or something."

Upon hearing this, Grabiner appeared behind Amoretta more quickly than a horror is summoned from a mirror in a dark bathroom. He ignored Donald's less-than-formal request and instead fixed his eyes steadily on Amoretta.

"Where exactly are you going?" he demanded, as if he feared these delinquents were ready to carry her off to an unwholesome place for unwholesome activities.

"To Falcon Hall for bingo," Amoretta volunteered, tilting her head lightly to the side. "I'll have to cut out on grammar lessons  _just for tonight_  - " She pressed her fingers together under her chin and did her best to look penitent and winsome.

Grabiner frowned. "You are progressing adequately enough," he said, then his eyes shifted to Donald Danson and Luke Phifer. "And you have every right to do as you please on your own time, so long as you do not violate school rules," he said.

"Would you like to come?" she asked hopefully. "Logan's invited you already, and you might enjoy seeing how the other half lives," she laughed.

"I am very busy with preparations for final examinations," he let his eyes fall heavily on Donald and Luke as he spoke. "Which certain students had best prepare themselves for, should they wish to be invited back to Iris Academy as sophomores," he said. "Although no amount of cramming will make up for months of wasted time and lackadaisical efforts, if 'efforts' they may be called."

"Good thing for me that I am an ace student," Donald replied easily with a cheeky wink. "Too bad you're busy," he said to Grabiner. "I know a lot of people are going to be  _really_ disappointed that you can't make it."

Although he had already decided on a course of absolute denial, Grabiner abruptly changed his mind when the boy taunted him. Perversely he took a half step forward and gave Donald a grim smile. "Given that I was expressly invited, I am sure that I can make at least a  _little_ time this evening, Mr. Danson."

Luke looked a little queasy, but Donald shrugged.

"Whatever you like,  _sir_ ," he said with a wicked grin. "I'm sure Logan'll even let you play a card if you pay into the kitty, even with Amoretta calling the numbers."

And so Grabiner found himself on his way to Falcon Hall in the company of Donald Danson, Luke Phifer, and the evening's guest of honor. It was really a strange and unaccountable happening. He couldn't say he was really  _excited_ about the evening's promise, but he was far too perversely stubborn to retreat now that he had committed himself to prove a point. He had never been to a casual student gathering at Iris Academy of his own volition, and had certainly never been to something as singular as a student-organized bingo game. She was always dragging him into situations he had never before entertained. He supposed Petunia Potsdam would say it was good for him. His mouth turned down at the corner.

Amoretta walked slightly ahead, chatting with Luke, who ran into a door facing and tripped twice on their way to the bingo game, rubbing his head ruefully at each mild injury. He flushed when Amoretta expressed her concern for him, and stammered out a thanks when she cast a green magic spell in hopes that a knot would not swell up on his forehead. Donald Danson sauntered along by Grabiner, apparently entirely unworried, his hands folded behind his head as he leaned back.

When the four of them entered Falcon Hall they found themselves welcomed cordially by Logan Phifer, who escorted Amoretta to a stool that had been brought into the hall expressly for her benefit, so she would not have to sit on the ground as she called numbers. A chair at the stool's right held the mechanical number sorter as well as a pile of cards. As she settled herself on the stool, the evening's players crowded around her, ruffling her hair and asking her to touch their cards.

"Look," she laughed, "I'll settle it by touching everybody's so it's all fair," she said, letting her fingertips brush over the piled up cards. "Now pay into the kitty and come and get 'em and we'll start the first round!"

The prospective bingo players needed no further invitation, and soon the box top in Luke's hands held a veritable pile of petty cash, which was quickly divided up into jackpots for the six rounds. Cards were distributed, and all the players sat hunched over their cards, as if waiting for the sound of a starting pistol. The mechanical sorter rattled strangely and spat out a little tab, and Amoretta called the first number.

While the players labored over their cards, Grabiner stood back and watched Amoretta perched on her little stool, blissfully calling out numbers. The evening's organizer, who never participated in the games he arranged, merely extracted a fee from off the top, like skimming cream from milk, casually leaned against the wall at Grabiner's left, as if to prevent him from easily escaping.

"Welcome to the Cards and Dice Club, Professor Grabiner," Logan said easily, his eyes sweeping slowly over the players and their cards.

"The what?" Grabiner asked, one eyebrow raised, because he had never heard of such a club being on the books at Iris Academy. "Are you telling me that you are running a  _gambling_  club, Mr. Phifer?"

While the bingo evenings had been approved by Petunia Potsdam, Grabiner was somewhat unsettled to hear tell that it was perhaps better organized that he had suspected.

"It's not a gambling club," Logan said with a quirk of his mouth. "It's a  _parlor games_  club. It's all very innocent. Sometimes we play for petty cash, but usually we just play for pennies or counters. We're not an official club yet, since I didn't have the idea until after the deadline for club applications had passed for the year, but we hope to be recognized next year. We've got a lot of regulars, you know. Amoretta is one of them." He paused thoughtfully. "She brought Damien Ramsey with her a few times, but he was never really a regular."

Grabiner frowned, not taking his eyes off Amoretta, who was still calling numbers with a great deal of spirit and enjoyment.

"If that is the 'valuable information' that Mr. Danson indicated you had for me, then I am afraid this evening will be a complete waste of time," Grabiner said with the air of a long-suffering disciplinarian. "Not that I expected anything less. You students rarely fail to disappoint when it comes to being disappointing."

Logan Phifer clicked his tongue once, apparently an indication that he appreciated Grabiner's joke, but then he shook his head. "Nope," he said, "That wasn't what I wanted to bring to your attention. I was just making polite conversation."

"I don't believe that any conversation about that brute could be considered 'polite,'" Grabiner fairly growled in response, but the cool Phifer twin only shrugged.

"Had no intentions of ruffling you up, sir," Logan said mildly. "What I thought you might like to know is that Amoretta never plays for money."

Logan Phifer's revelation was so casual and offhand that Grabiner was caught off guard. It was a very strange thing to bring to his attention, and he was beginning to think that the boy was a little out of his skull, or else just utterly determined to waste his time. But neither of these facts added up with Logan Phifer's personality, such as Grabiner knew it. As a student, he was quite decent, but by far the most striking thing about him was his canniness, his shrewd nature. Logan Phifer could get blood out of a turnip.

With this in mind, Grabiner looked at him sidelong and asked very carefully, "And why do you think that is?"

"Because she's lucky," was Logan's ready answer, and their conversation was briefly interrupted as 'Bingo' was called among the players. As the winner of the first round was paid his jackpot, Donald took over Luke's place at the kitty and the other Phifer twin drifted aimlessly toward his brother, never taking his eyes off the brunette girl on the stool, who began the second round with a snap and a flourish.

"Pardon me for saying so," Grabiner said dryly, "But that hardly seems to be a reason that would  _dissuade_ her from gambling."

Logan's smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. "That's because you don't understand how lucky Amoretta is. She won't play for money because she says it's not fair. She always wins, and before you go thinking it's observational bias, I keep track of the outcome of every match played in the Cards and Dice Club," Logan said, rattling his fingers on the front of a neat black moleskine notebook. "The Fiddler's got a ninety-five percent win ratio, across all the different kinds of games we play. I guess I don't have to point out to you how extraordinary that is."

"The Fiddler," Grabiner echoed, his eyes shifting from the girl on the stool to Logan.

"That's what everybody calls her," Logan explained with amusement. "It started up the very first evening. It comes from the saying 'Those that dance must pay the fiddler.' If you play with Amoretta, you always end up paying her, so that's how she got the nickname. The first evening we played bingo together, Amoretta won the whole pot, and then tried to give it back. She said she had only played to see if she  _could_ win, and then felt pretty badly about it. She'd never played bingo before, you see. She knows how lucky she is. Usually she'll only play for counters, or a slice of cake or something. Of course, nobody was willing to let her give back the pot just because she felt guilty about it. When she told me that it wasn't fair, because she was born lucky, well, to put it kindly, I thought she thought a little too well of herself and that her head had been turned by it. I asked her to play a private game after the bingo was over, just my brother and I, Donald, and the Fiddler. I didn't want to fleece her, not exactly," he cast a sidelong look at Grabiner and offered his palms up, "But believing you've been born with some kind of special grace is pretty dangerous. I just wanted to educate her on how dangerous it was. So we played a friendly game of Black Maria."

"Yes," said Grabiner raising one eyebrow, "I'm sure it was very friendly. Did you play with the winnings from the pot?"

Logan laughed, "Well, naturally Amoretta had a lot to lose, and she  _wanted_ to lose it. I felt like I was providing a public service," he said. "Relieving her of her guilt. I had run the bingo game, so I had money to play with. I staked Luke and she staked Donald on the promise he would buy her a piece of pie next time she went out to the shopping mall."

"She's very generous," Grabiner said sourly, as if he did not find this a virtue so much as a target painted on her back.

"Isn't she ever," Logan agreed. "Well, I hardly need tell you that  _I_ was the one who was taught a lesson in humility. She won every single solitary nickel that was wagered. She shot the moon, she cleaned the slate, she played like some kind of savant, chatting like a little catbird the whole time. No matter how poorly her hand seemed to be doing, at the last possible moment she would play something outrageous and win everything on the table. Of course, after that night I found out who her father is, but you see, Amoretta doesn't play like a professional. She doesn't play anything like a sharp. She's as guileless and gullible as a novice from a convent, like she's ready to sing all about how the hills are alive with the sound of music. No, Amoretta plays like a happy amateur, but the cards and dice love her."

Grabiner glanced sidelong at Amoretta and admitted, "There are times when she seems not so much like a horse, but more like a carousel pony."

Luke Phifer, who had been loitering nearby as he listened idly to their conversation, suddenly went very red and covered his face with his hands, sinking to the floor in a sudden squat.

Grabiner caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to look at the afflicted Phifer twin, asking with equal parts astonishment and pique, "Does that boy have a nosebleed?"

Logan did not seem particularly interested in his brother's distress, and waved Grabiner off idly. "You'll have to forgive my brother, Professor Grabiner. He suffers from a mild mental illness when it comes to Amoretta." Logan gestured briefly to Amoretta again, who was by now beginning the third game. "You know Big Steve Kenyon the pinball wizard calls her his rabbit's foot? He says that he can get double the score on any arcade machine if she's standing anywhere near him. I can't see how he really notices, considering how high his scores are regularly, but he  _swears_ by her. She's got a lot of admirers in the Cards and Dice Club. A night with her calling the bingo numbers was sure to be a good draw, and it was." He paused thoughtfully. "She's got a pretty big following outside the Cards and Dice Club too, you know - probably in the top three most popular girls in the freshman class, along with Minnie and Pastel. People like her because she's cute and she's a goose. She's about as dangerous as a kitten in a paper bag. You'd never think a girl like that'd be luckier than a lightning strike, but she is."

Grabiner frowned at the blue haired mafia don of Falcon Hall, but the boy was calm and unabashed, clapping politely each time a winner was cashed out of the kitty.

"You will have to excuse my disbelief, but I think you may be exaggerating the girl's abilities a little," Grabiner said coolly. He did not like to think that there were astonishing things about Amoretta that he had yet to discover.

Logan looked at Grabiner sidelong and his mouth quirked up at the corner again.

"Would you care to make a bet?" he asked lightly.

"Excuse me?" Grabiner growled, because he now had the distinct impression that the boy was trying to play him for a fool. He readied himself to reply that he had no interest in betting on anything, certainly not with a student who had nothing of worth to wager, but Logan Phifer was already talking.

"I can propose a test that will prove to you exactly how lucky Amoretta is, beyond a shadow of a doubt," he said. "If you're still adamant that you won't take me at my word, if you'd care to make a wager, I can make it worth your while."

Grabiner was ready to openly scoff at the boy, because what on earth would he have that would interest a professor  _in the least_ , when the boy produced a beautifully leather bound volume from somewhere in his robes and held it casually before Grabiner, as if it were a delightful carrot.

Grabiner snatched up the book almost without thinking, his fingers moving of their own accord.

"This is the 1758 printing of  _The Nine Circles of Fire_ ," he said in a low voice, quite astonished. It would be the gem of many a fine collection. For Grabiner, it was a pearl of great price. "Where did you get this?" he demanded.

"From an associate," Logan Phifer said idly, and when Grabiner raised his eyes from the frontispiece of the book, it was with new respect for the boy in the navy robes with the easy, beguiling smile.

"How much do you want for it?" Grabiner demanded, but Logan simply laughed.

"Don't be silly, Professor Grabiner," he said with the flop of a lazy hand. "You couldn't buy that from me with ten years worth of savings. But you could  _win it_ ," he suggested conspiratorially, "In a fair bet."

"How can I be assured that the bet will be fair?" Grabiner asked with narrowed eyes. "You do not strike me as one who makes losing bets."

Logan nodded unashamedly. "That's true enough. I only bet on a sure thing," he said. "The bet'll be fair, but I wouldn't make it if I didn't think I could win it."

"What do you want out of it?" Grabiner asked warily, because the boy clearly had an agenda.

"For you to be the sponsor of the Cards and Dice Club when we apply for recognition next year," Logan said with a grin. "Oh I know that we don't need a sponsor, but let's just say I'd appreciate having one. I'd also like permission to use your red magic classroom after hours for meetings of the club so we don't have to keep crowding up the hall." Logan gestured idly to Luke and Donald and said, "The boys will keep it very clean. We'll be like mice. You won't even know we're there."

"It would be unconscionable of me to support the breaking of school rules," Grabiner threatened the boy darkly. "I could never be in favor of such an organization."

"Oh, I'd never expect you to harbor us if we were criminals, Professor Grabiner," Logan said smoothly, "But the fact remains that I have a  _very_ clean record. Cards and Dice is a social club for the enjoyment of games, not unlike Miss Virginia Danson's Sports Club. So what do you say, sir? Do you want to take the bet? I'll even let you keep the book on good faith, until you're satisfied that you've lost the bet, fair and square. Of course if you win," he said temptingly, "You can keep it, with my compliments."

Grabiner curled his lip as he debated the offer. At last he said, "How am I to know that you are the rightful owner of that book, Mr. Phifer? How do I know that you are authorized to offer it as collateral for a bet?"

"You want me to produce a bill of sale or a certificate of authenticity, Professor?" Logan laughed with genuine amusement, and then from the pocket of his robe he produced a folded slip of paper that bore a wax seal and the signature of a very notable wizard. "You're just the kind of cat that the Fiddler needs to look after her," Logan said appreciatively, passing the note over to Grabiner for his inspection.

Grabiner scrutinized the note until he was satisfied that it was not a clever forgery and then passed it back into the hands of the boy.

As an even trade, _The Nine Circles of Fire_  for the use of his red magic classroom for as long as this 'Cards and Dice Club' remained solvent was not bad. Grabiner had no desire to play Little Bo Peep to a herd of youthful delinquents, but it would give him an excuse to monitor their activities and make sure that Amoretta did not find herself used too poorly by her scapegrace friends.

Of course, he only got to keep the book if he won the bet, but to win the bet he merely had to remain skeptical of Amoretta's purported miraculous luck. As he was skeptical by nature, and firmly convinced that his wife had not been 'born under a lucky star' as a superstitious fool might have put it, he did not find this a particularly tall order.

"Very well," Grabiner said levelly. "Please explain to me how you can prove to me 'beyond a shadow of a doubt' that Amoretta is abnormally lucky."

"Does that mean you're taking the bet, sir?" Logan asked with a gleam of anticipation in his eyes.

"It does," Grabiner answered coolly. Logan Phifer might be convinced that a sucker was born every minute, but Grabiner was determined to prove to him that sometimes it is the bet maker who is the chump.

"Have her buy a lottery ticket," Logan said simply. "Oh I know she's not twenty-one yet, but if you pay for the ticket, they'll let her pick the numbers. Pick whatever lottery you want: state, regional, or national. You could even just do a scratch off, but make sure she's the one who scratches it off. You can handle it all you want, but it's got to be  _her_ ticket."

"Do you expect me to believe that you think that Amoretta's luck is such that she could play the lottery one time and win a jackpot?" Grabiner asked with astonishment.

"That's what I expect you to believe, sir," Logan said agreeably. "Otherwise I'm just giving you that copy of  _The Nine Circles of Fire_."

"And where should I buy this ticket?" Grabiner asked, ferreting about for the strings of Logan Phifer's scheme, although how the boy might manage to rig a  _national lottery_  he could not begin to guess.

Logan shrugged. "Wherever you like," he said. "Lots of places sell tickets, and I shouldn't have to remind you to be discreet when you buy your ticket. Amoretta isn't using any kind of magic to win the way she does, but you don't want to attract the attention of unwanted eyes."

Grabiner reflexively looked back at Amoretta, who was as merry as a little parakeet on her perch.

"Why did you feel the need to bring this to my attention, Mr. Phifer?" Grabiner demanded.

The boy smiled a secret smile, one that marked him older than his years.

"Let's just say," he said, "That it occurred to me that  _someone else_  might have taken notice of Amoretta's remarkable luck."

And that was all Logan Phifer had to say about it.

* * *

That evening, Amoretta and Grabiner returned to their rooms to find two envelopes sticking out from under the hallway door, as if someone had made a concerted effort to slide them into the room and failed. Grabiner raised an eyebrow, but Amoretta seemed to think it was very normal to receive personal correspondence in this fashion and picked the letters up happily. As Grabiner unlocked and unwarded the door, she turned the letters over in her hands and then gave one of them over to him.

"This one's for you," she announced.

Grabiner accepted the letter dubiously, even as he pushed open the door and motioned her into the room. She went immediately to his desk, where she sat down and slit the letter open with the ease of a girl who was very used to receiving letters. She seemed so pleased to receive the letter that he knew she recognized the penmanship on the envelopes and understood that the letter would contain good news, rather than bad.

"And who has written these letters?" he asked, turning his letter over in his hands. The envelope was plain and the handwriting small and cramped.

She had already begun to read her letter, a happy flush coming up on her cheeks. Her eyes flicked up to his briefly at the question and she answered, "Big Steve," immediately, then added, "But the letters aren't  _from_ him, he just writes them."

The mystery grew thicker and darker.

"Then who, pray tell, are they from?" Grabiner asked with growing ire. He had learned only this evening that Amoretta apparently had a fuller social calendar than he had at first supposed, and he found himself a little cross about it. It wasn't as if he was jealous. He was simply angry because it aggravated him to discover the utterly frivolous ways she invented to waste her time when she ought to have been studying, under his direction.

Having finished reading her missive, which was apparently quite brief, Amoretta immediately began rummaging in Grabiner's desk for some writing paper and a pen, quite without his consent. He opened his mouth to protest, but she had soon found what she was looking for and began busily scribbling away at a reply.

"Mr. Hoppity," Amoretta answered absently, her full attention apparently focused on the letter she was penning.

"Mr. Hoppity?" Grabiner repeated with incredulous horror. 'Mr. Hoppity' sounded like a name that could only belong to an imaginary friend, possible one who was seven feet tall and delivered eggs on certain Sundays. That Amoretta was so devoted to her reply to an imaginary party worried Grabiner immensely. "Now see here - " he began, but Amoretta waved him off distractedly.

"Not now Hieronymous," she insisted. "I'm trying to think of what to say. In a minute. Read your letter?" she suggested absently as she bent her head to work.

With some trepidation, Grabiner slit his own letter open and proceeded to read it. It was the surest way to get at answers, in any case, since Amoretta was apparently unwilling to talk to him until after she had finished this duty of the greatest importance.

The letter, written in the same close hand as the envelope, was thankfully brief. It was littered with more rabbit-related puns than the candy aisle of a drugstore the weekend before Easter. It said in no uncertain terms, that while Mr. Steven Kenyon and Miss Amoretta (here the name Suzerain had been written and then scratched out) Grabiner were the sweetest of friends, that their relationship was purely platonic, founded in mutual self-interest and a fondness for those splendid creatures whom the wisest of men call 'the rabbit.' Therefore, the writer of the letter begged the patience of Miss Amoretta's husband in overlooking Steve's attachment to her. He was a gentleman and thought of her just like his sister, even though Amoretta was not a budding kickboxer.

The letter was signed, as Amoretta had indicated, 'Mr. Hoppity.'

Amoretta was busy blotting her letter when Grabiner demanded, "What exactly is this?"

Amoretta looked up, a smile curling up contentedly on her face. "I told you, it's a letter from Mr. Hoppity, or at least I assume it is. Big Steve never writes letters himself. He's too shy," she laughed pleasantly, "Not good with words, unless you're talking about something he really likes: bounders or coffee."

"And Mr. Hoppity is?" Grabiner prompted with growing dread.

"A stuffed rabbit," Amoretta volunteered naturally, as if it were very common for stuffed rabbits to carry on their own correspondence. "Last September, I think it was? I really wanted this stuffed rabbit out of the crane machine in the arcade, but I just couldn't seem to get it out. I mean, I won a lot of other things, all these weird looking stuffed things with googly eyes, but I just couldn't get the bunny. Finally, I asked Big Steve if he could get it for me and he did," she said, touching her face lightly with her fingertips at the happy memory. "But then I felt bad about it. I hadn't won the bunny myself, you know? So I gave it to Big Steve. He named it Mr. Hoppity, and Mr. Hoppity and Cotton-tail have been writing letters to one another ever since."

"Cotton-tail?" Grabiner asked despite himself, and then his eyes swept unbidden to the bed, where the bedraggled looking stuffed rabbit sat between the pillows. If Amoretta wasn't clinging to him while she slept, she was clinging to the rabbit. If she had had both hands free during the night he had no doubt that she would have tried to cling to both.

Amoretta nodded happily. "Cotton-tail has been my best friend since I was very little. She's named after Cotton-tail, from  _The Tale of Peter Rabbit_ ," Amoretta confided, as if this were not obvious. "You know, Flopsy married cousin Benjamin and had an awful lot of babies, and Mopsy didn't marry anyone at all, or otherwise ran off scandalously, because you never hear of her, but Cotton-tail married the black rabbit and went to live up on the hill." She gave Grabiner a sly, sidelong glance, her chin tucked down, so that she looked up at him in amusement. "Cotton-tail and I have similar destinies," she laughed. "We both married the mysterious black rabbit and went to live up on the hill."

"I am hardly a 'black rabbit,'" Grabiner protested with some ire. This charade concerning stuffed rabbits was doing nothing for his temper.

"Well, you're certainly not a white one," Amoretta returned with some amusement. She placed a finger thoughtfully against her lips. "I think Mr. Hoppity is getting very fond of Cotton-tail," she said. "And that makes me so pleased. Perhaps they'll get married! Wouldn't that be nice?"

"I hardly think it would be," Grabiner said, honestly expressing his feelings on the matter.

Amoretta flushed and covered her mouth with alarm, "Well, if you don't like it, you know, I never thought about it, but I could get a stuffed bunny for you, and Cotton-tail could marry him, just so our family stays together," she said. "Of course Cotton-tail would rather marry  _your_ rabbit than Big Steve's," Amoretta was working herself up into something of a panic.

" _Amoretta_ ," Grabiner's voice cut through her panic like a knife, causing her to fall into respectful silence. "I have very little interest in the social lives of stuffed animals," he said coldly. "If this absurd game of pretend amuses you, then by all means, do keep at it."

At that, Amoretta stood up in astonishment, and observed with wonder, "Hieronymous, you  _are_ jealous. You're jealous of Big Steve and Mr. Hoppity."

" _I am not jealous_ ," Grabiner thundered. "I am perplexed, mystified, even confounded by your bizarre behavior and weird antics," he admitted, "But I am  _not jealous._ "

Amoretta advanced on him slowly. "You are. Hieronymous, it's so obvious that you are," she said, shaking her head with wonder.

Grabiner was by now fuming. "My wife writes letters to a stuffed rabbit, while she pretends to be a different stuffed rabbit," he nearly shouted. " _That is strange_."

"It would be more strange if I wrote letters to a stuffed rabbit while pretending to be  _the same_  stuffed rabbit," Amoretta pointed out easily. "Then I'd just be writing letters to myself," she paused, "As a bunny."

"I find it hard to imagine this circumstance becoming more strange than it already is," Grabiner growled and Amoretta caught hold of his arm, tugging on it gently.

"I really didn't think that it would make you cross," she said. "I just didn't think that it would. Is writing letters to someone's stuffed rabbit another courtship ritual that I just don't know anything about?" she asked worriedly.

Grabiner passed his hands in front of his eyes and resisted the mighty urge to burst out into frantic, hysterical laughter. His nerves were frayed from the evening's various entertainments.

"Only among the criminally insane," Grabiner hazarded, feeling harried out of his wits.

"I really will stop writing them if they make you unhappy," Amoretta said seriously. "I do like to write them, but it's not that important to me. I'll go tear up the letter I wrote right now if you want me to," she said with sudden inspiration, moving as if to act upon her instincts immediately.

Grabiner caught her by the arm. "Don't do that," he said, and he sounded quite exhausted. "If you like writing your silly little letters, then do so. Have rabbit tea parties. Go chat with one another in the carrot patch. I really don't mind," he said slowly. "It was never my intention that you should cease doing the things that give you pleasure to suit my whims. You are my wife, not my property," he said seriously. "You should do as you like."

Amoretta bit her lip and nodded, and she did not tear up the letter to her good friend Mr. Hoppity.

They did not speak of the incident again that night, and on Saturday morning, Amoretta got up early to deliver the mail, leaving Grabiner to sleep in. After she had delivered all the freshman mail, she slid the letter to Mr. Hoppity under Big Steve's door, and then she went out for the day.

Grabiner was out for most of the day as well. He had a detention to proctor, and things to set in order for the final exams. He spent much of the day inspecting the school dungeons carefully.

When he returned to his rooms that evening, he found that Amoretta was already enjoying her evening bath. He took off his hat and threw it on the bedside table, rubbing his temples. He had had a very tiring day.

Just as he was considering lying down in the bed with a book, he spied something on the bed.

Sitting very seriously between the pillows was a new inmate of the bedlam of his life. It was a stuffed black bunny rabbit with eyes like marbles and a pink 'x' for a nose and mouth. It was nestled between the pillows next to the well-loved ragged stuffed rabbit as if the two of them were on cozy terms.

Around the rabbit's neck was a pink ribbon and a small card, upon which was written in a very familiar hand,

"This is the thing that makes me the happiest."


	13. Eleven: Rarer Than A White Crow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lucky man is rarer than a white crow.
> 
> \-- Juvenal, Satires

April was rapidly disappearing from under their feet, like sand draining into the bottom bell of an hourglass. Examinations and the end of term loomed large before the both of them, and everything was very busy. Grabiner commenced holding extra study sessions on Friday evenings, and Amoretta threw herself wholly into the study of green magic. She had already completed the freshman curriculum for her two chosen fields of white and blue magic, and much of what the sophomores studied, and both Grabiner and Potsdam refused to let her progress further with them this year.

"Give your mind a little time to stretch and grow," advised the headmistress. "You've been through an awful experience, my chickadee. Too much devotion to truly esoteric subjects too quickly will fry your darling little brain. I am afraid you will wake up one morning and find yourself cut adrift from reality. It has happened before, you know, and it's awfully difficult to pick up the pieces afterward. Study the green growing things, and the other good things that live," she suggested. "You like that well enough, and you will find the knowledge valuable, by and by."

Grabiner was also adamant about it. "Once the term is over," he said, "I will begin teaching you how to use bind spells, and we will continue to refine your teleportation technique. At the moment, however, I think you are best served broadening your knowledge, rather than deepening it. What you  _can_ do, you do very well, but that is not enough. At the moment you're a dunce with a few peculiar talents. I will not pass you or Miss Middleton up to sophomore advanced blue until you  _actually_ are sophomores."

It was strange to think that while the end of the year stood as a prodigious event for almost every single one of the freshmen, it was no longer anything particularly remarkable to Amoretta. School would be dismissed for the summer holiday, but she knew she would not be going home to her familiar little farmhouse bedroom in rural New Hampshire. Petunia Potsdam had said it herself: Amoretta  _could_ be away from Grabiner, but it would not be an easy thing, and besides, she had no real  _desire_ to be away from him. The fact that neither of the resident authority figures of Iris Academy objected to her spending the summer there was actually a great relief. The headmistress had also insisted that it would be easy enough to smooth things over with her aunt and uncle, and Amoretta had no reason to doubt her.

Amoretta would have fought to stay with Grabiner, if it had been necessary, but she was grateful she had been spared from such a battle. He was willing to have her with him, in fact, he  _wanted_ her with him. She knew that now, in her secret heart. It wasn't only that he felt he had responsibilities toward her. She was more than his ward. He was still skittish and uncertain about his feelings, about how he ought to behave around her, but she had at last completed her metamorphosis: she had stopped being his student and had become his wife.

And so while the end of the term was of some interest to Amoretta, very little in her life would change substantially after the May Day ball. She would still be living at Iris Academy, taking her meals in the cafeteria and sleeping in Grabiner's (their?) bed. She would still be attending lessons taught by Hieronymous Grabiner, although she would miss her classmates after they packed their bags and left in search of more leisurely summer pursuits. Would she still be expected to wear her school uniform over the summer? She thought the heavy robes might be a little stifling during the warmth of August, but she mightn't have any other option. She hadn't packed the previous September with the anticipation of spending the following summer at school, nor had she tucked a swimsuit into her bags over the Christmas holiday, the last time she had been back to the little New Hampshire farmhouse where her Uncle Carmine lived.

The coming summer would also be a change for Ellen, even as it was not a change. After a disastrous spring break, she had elected to stay on at Iris Academy over the summer. She had finally made the decision to cut her ties with her difficult past, to erase herself from the lives of her mother and stepfather, and was now determined to make a new home for herself in the witch world. Amoretta was sorry that Ellen's parting had been so hard. It was difficult for her to imagine what it would be like to cut ties with own her past so completely, but she thought it was a good decision for Ellen. She was getting only grief and pain on her visits home, and it was not in her to keep at it just out of sheer stubbornness. At least now Ellen might be able to move past the feelings of shame and impotence her parents had heaped on her like unwanted birthday presents. There were plenty of people at Iris Academy who loved her, even if she had grown into a thing her parents had no notion of how to deal with. If they couldn't understand how splendid and interesting and courageous and wonderful their daughter was, then Amoretta thought that Ellen was better off without them.

Although she was sensitive to Ellen's pain, Amoretta was grateful that there was another wildseed witch who had flung herself headlong into her new life. It was good to have a friend to face the unknown future with, and Ellen was sensible, with a good head on her shoulders: brave and clever and  _very protective_. That they often had conflicting points of view was one of the reasons they were such a good friends. They could always work their way through their disagreements, and come to some sort of understanding at the end where they either agreed, or agreed to disagree.

Besides, although Ellen was perhaps not the greatest supporter of Amoretta's marriage to Grabiner, she was slowly beginning to come around. She no longer suggested his primary intentions were to take advantage of Amoretta's childlike good nature and had come to respect the fact that Amoretta had the right to make decisions concerning her own life. After all, Ellen had made the decision to cut all ties with her family and start her life over. She had done this of her own free will and with a desire to shape her own future. Surely Amoretta ought to be allowed to do the same.

They were both like new swimmers at a pool, little children who had finally had the courage to let go of the wall and venture out into the middle of the water. Neither of them could really make much of a future for themselves while clinging fearfully to the remnants of their previous lives, but it took courage to let go of what was known, of what was comforting, of what was  _familiar_. Ellen was no longer suggesting that the police be called on Grabiner because she realized that the police were no longer really of concern to the two girls (or their professor). They were now residents of the witch world: those who lived their lives behind the velvet curtain.

It would do no good to draw undue attention to oneself, or to raise the ire of the mundane police, but the girls now belonged to a different society entirely, one with different traditions and different rules. Ellen had discovered that in the witch world, Grabiner's marriage to Amoretta was not particularly objectionable, and as Amoretta seemed happy with it, Ellen had resolved to drop all charges against the Professor.

She was still determined to stand as Amoretta's legal counsel, however. While she no longer viewed Grabiner with intense suspicion, she was still watchful, as a prudent person always is. Since they were now at sea in a brave, new world, Ellen spent much of her time in the library pursuing a self-directed course of study in magical history, custom, law, and culture. When she tapped out the school library's resources in a particular subject, she now called at Grabiner's door to borrow from his private library. They weren't so much fast friends as they were wary ones, but Ellen had at last resolved that Grabiner could - at least to some degree - be trusted with Amoretta's well-being, and they were beginning to get on together. Grabiner disliked her the least of Amoretta's misbegotten circle of friends, which meant that he was at least a little fond of her, in his way. Of course, she was an excellent student, although very headstrong, and with quite a temper. He had no complaints with her performance in his classes. It was quite ordinary for him to have vaguely positive feelings about the best of his students. What was unusual - and in fact  _bizarre_  - about the situation was that because of Amoretta, Grabiner had developed a new and heretofore unheard of relationship with Ellen: she was the close friend of his wife, and he did not find her completely dreadful, and so she had become  _something_ like a friend.

He did not commonly loan his books out to students, after all, certainly not rare and valuable ones (which were usually the only ones Ellen Middleton was interested in reading).

She was still very decorous and respectful in class, but outside of class she was not quite so frigidly standoffish as she had been before. When she encountered conflicting information on a difficult subject, she usually requested his opinion, and Grabiner, who enjoyed playing the role of mentor, no matter how much he might have groused about it from time to time, always responded seriously.

Amoretta, who was spending the month of April being taught green magic by Petunia Potsdam, still benefited from Ellen's studies. Every afternoon after classes were quite finished, Ellen and Amoretta met in the empty blue magic classroom and Ellen tutored Amoretta in witch culture and tradition, as she had been able to glean from her own studies. Virginia sometimes attended these lessons for her own enjoyment, offering her own (sometimes unfounded) opinions on various subjects, but most of the time she caused such a disturbance that Ellen ejected her from the classroom with such authority that she might have been Grabiner herself.

Grabiner was grateful that Ellen's studies occupied Amoretta in the evenings, because time was fast slipping away toward final examinations, and he had much to prepare. Keeping himself busy with his work meant he had little time to dwell on the complications of his heart, which was, naturally,  _by design._  He would put everything off until the summer, and then in summer perhaps he would find another series of reasons to put it off again.

He had been honest when he had told her that he was terrified of her. He was terrified of  _them, together_. At last he had discovered that he had something  _worth having_  in his life again, and that meant it was something that he could lose. To lose his heart again, to see it (her) savaged and bleeding, he did not think it was something he could survive. He had fancied himself a strong man when he had been but a boy, but then the world had broken him. It had broken his spirit, it had broken his heart, and it had broken his nerve. Now he knew the bitter, unseemly truth: he was weak. He was a coward. He was afraid of his own wife.

Because she loved him.

And that was terrifying.

Still, as the minutes ticked away toward the inevitable day of final examinations, Grabiner found himself facing down another deadline. He had taken Logan Phifer's bet, and  _the Nine Circles of Fire_  sat unopened on his bedside table. Grabiner had decided that nothing less than a national lottery win would shake his conviction that there was nothing particularly remarkable about Amoretta's luck. That meant if he were to honor the terms of his bet with Logan Phifer, then he needed to make sure that Amoretta acquired a lottery ticket before the end of the term, and that he had the opportunity to verify the results of that drawing to his own satisfaction.

Of course, it was patently absurd to even entertain the notion that she might  _win_ a drawing, but Grabiner thought that she possibly had the chance of getting two, or perhaps even three of the numbers right, if Logan Phifer's statistical data was any indication of her inherent "luckiness." Of course, luck and one's "luckiness" were recognized phenomena in the witch world, but much like the true nature of the soul, they were not well understood. In general, luck was believed to deal with causality, a thing few wizards really had any notion of how to affect. The reason it was little studied was simple. It was very dangerous to dabble with causality, and while the rewards might have been substantial, the dangers were immense. Witches and wizards regularly devoted lifetimes of study such sundry topics as: ways in which to blow up themselves, ways in which to blow up people other than themselves, ways to wager their souls to unknown outer powers, ways to fling themselves halfway across the universe, and ways to maim and kill with a word. Each of these courses of study was risky. To be a research wizard required a certain disregard for one's own personal safety.

But to meddle with causality: that was a risk that very few were willing to take. The few that did study it either did so unsuccessfully and thus consigned themselves to a life of fruitless research, or otherwise they met such gruesome, untimely, and unlikely ends that the curious were thoroughly discouraged. It was not really a forbidden subject of study. It did not have to be.

Many witches and wizards were quite naturally superstitious, which was why Grabiner did not think it remarkable that Amoretta had her own little quirks of personality. She always knocked on wood, for one thing, and she threw salt over her shoulder when it was spilled. All of these little folkloric habits of hers were snatches of the witch world that still lived on in the mundane world, divorced from their original function. Grabiner was not a superstitious man. He was far too cautious to ever rely on something as unpredictable as luck. He abided by traditions because he was a traditional man, but he recognized the difference between ritual actions and substantive actions.

He did not doubt that Amoretta had slightly above-average luck. Such was not unreasonable. It was not a regular occurrence, but the fact remained that some individuals were  _observably_ luckier than others. It was the same as having a natural facility for a certain type of magic, or a particular element. It was not a common skill, but nor was it a particularly rare one to be able to count oneself a bit luckier than one's fellows. With even a slight advantage, statistically one had a chance of being quite anomalous. This did not mean that one had miraculous powers. It is not all that miraculous to always win at cards against other high school students, particularly when one's father is a professional gambler.

Although as Logan Phifer had noted, it was very difficult to cast Amoretta in the role of card sharp.

But Grabiner was much more willing to entertain the notion that she was uncommonly clever when it came to playing cards than he was to believe that her luck was such that she could play the national lottery one time and  _win_.

It wasn't as if Amoretta was statistically more likely or unlikely to be a jackpot winner than any other single individual who played the lottery by buying a solitary ticket. If she won the lottery, that in itself would not qualify her as having luck of any noteable calibre, at least in his opinion. What made it a real test was that Logan Phifer had as much as  _guaranteed_ a win. That he felt he could guarantee it once meant that he thought her luck was a tangible, repeating phenomenon. Logan Phifer had more or less told him that he believed that Amoretta was lucky enough to win a national jackpot any time she cared to play.

And this was not something Grabiner was willing to believe.

That was not good luck. That was not exceptional luck. That was  _divine_ luck.

Of course the divinely lucky existed. There were books and books on the subject, and  _the Nine Circles of Fire_ was one of them.

But Amoretta née Suzerain was neither an angel nor a goddess. She was a schoolgirl who spoke French badly and wrote letters to stuffed rabbits.

Perhaps a week elapsed before Grabiner had time to escort Amoretta out to buy a lottery ticket to make good on his bet with Logan Phifer. When she had first heard of his desire to have her buy a ticket, she had refused utterly.

"I can't," she said. "Papa has always said that it would be wicked and dangerous of me to play the lottery. I can't and I won't. It isn't right."

After a bit of patient questioning, Grabiner managed to ascertain that the reason Amoretta was unwilling to play the lottery was that she  _also_ believed that she would win if she bought a ticket. When he explained that he was entirely uninterested in the jackpot, and simply wished her to play as a test of her luck, she reluctantly agreed, on the promise that he would destroy the ticket if she won.

"Papa told me that it would be really dangerous for me to play the lottery," she had explained quietly. "If you win, you get noticed, you know? He said if people knew how lucky I am, that they would never leave me alone, that I wouldn't be able to have a normal sort of life, with school and books and playing games."

"Will you trust me to handle it?" he asked her seriously, because it was something that seriously troubled her, even if he thought it was ridiculous.

She nodded reluctantly, and so their deal was struck: he would test her luck however he liked, on the condition that they made no gains from it and that he was very careful not to draw attention to either of them.

"Papa says they'd gather like flies if they could find a mark as easy as me, and they'd never leave me alone, afterward. I'm like the goose that laid the golden egg, so inevitably somebody is bound to try and kill me to get at the eggs inside," she explained to him, her chin cupped in her palms. "He says my best defense is that everything about me is so outrageously improbable that it's a hard pill to swallow."

After this discussion, Grabiner understood that Amoretta's father, the adroit professional gambler, had played no small role in fostering her delusions of grandeur and this explained a great deal. She was extremely superstitious and she believed that she was unnaturally lucky because her father, whom she seemed to worship as if he were the sun in the sky, had told her that she was. She was naturally charismatic - no one could deny that - certainly least of all Grabiner. In this case, he believed her charisma worked in a way similar to hypnotism. She was pretty, friendly, good at cards, and genuinely believed she was uncommonly lucky.

It was probably not surprising that her classmates believed her as well.

It was as if she were a self-fulfilling prophecy: an individual who manufactured fame for herself, someone who attempted to impose her own vision of reality upon the world and succeeded because the story that she told was one that other people wanted to hear. It was the natural magic of  _presence_ , of magnetism. People liked myths and fairy stories, and Amoretta had become the local deity of Logan Phifer's Cards and Dice Club. It was in their best interest to keep buying into her legend because she was their patron saint.

They were understandably biased.

Grabiner had previously known only one other individual with such incredible magnetism. She had called herself 'the Peerless,' an audacious appellation if ever there was one, certainly for a girl in school who came from no family and hadn't a penny to her name. But as other people had watched her spin her common miracles, they had come to agree with her. She was  _the Peerless_.

He had bought into her myth as much as anyone else, perhaps moreso, because he had been her private audience; her greatest defender; the one with whom she shared all her victories and follies. Perhaps the cost of being so brilliant - of shining like a star that burned pure spirit - was an abbreviated life. He had seen her dead, had her blood on his hands and on his clothes and on his heart. He would never come clean of the stain.

But thinking of Violet and Amoretta at the same time made him so sick that he thought he might vomit. He wasn't a fatalist, but more than she was, he was  _terrified_ of the future.

Logan Phifer had said,  _The Fiddler needs a cat like you to look after her._

But who could hold onto the tail of a comet when it was so determined to fall into the open arms of the sun?

If the trajectories of their lives were similar -

At least he had the mean consolation that this time, he would not be left alone when the guillotine blade fell.

* * *

Of course, even though he believed there was not the slightest chance of Amoretta picking winning numbers, Grabiner insisted on discretion, as he had promised he would. Winning tickets could be traced to their point of origin, so even if they had no intentions of claiming a prize, if they were not careful in the way they bought the ticket, then they could be found even if they did not wish to be found. He was certain that nothing would draw the Magistrates like vultures to a decaying carcass like a wizard winning the lottery.

The last thing Amoretta needed was to be scrutinized by that pack of monsters. It was enough to make him second guess having her buy a ticket in the first place - but then, he did not think that she would win, was unwilling to even consider the possibility that she might, because such a thing was utterly preposterous, and he refused to buy into her myth. Logan Phifer had been right about one thing: it was very dangerous to believe all the accolades that were heaped upon one as if they were the honest truth.

He had learned this himself - the hard way - hadn't he? He had paid for that lesson with his own blood, and some of hers. He was the Blind Icarus, after all. He would never come clean.

He could at least be mindful of his actions in this circumstance.

He threw a glamour on himself, and then another on Amoretta. She was interested when he threw an additional glamour on one of the school's vans, one that made it appear to be a nondescript brown station wagon.

Amoretta was adept enough at blue magic that he might have allowed her to cast her own personal glamour, but he worried that she would end up making herself more noticeable, as opposed to less, since she had a positive  _romance_ with the dramatic and interesting. In the end, he settled on something appropriately bland, and she ended up looking like a very average six year old boy. She complained at first, particularly because of Grabiner's choice of clothing.

"I am very cute," she admitted, turning around with her arms out and her fingers spread, "But most six year old boys don't wear little argyle cardigans and wool shorts." She paused. "Is this what you wore?" A smile broke over her face like dawn on the prairie and her cheeks flushed with the pink of sunrise. "You must have been  _adorable_." She stuck out one stubby leg and waggled a foot in a tiny brown oxford shoe around. "It isn't very common here, though, I have to tell you," she laughed, "Unless you're on your way to sunday school, or a funeral or something."

"I have very little experience with small children," he confessed with a frown and she laughed.

"That's obvious," Amoretta said and then leaned forward winsomely. "Here, let me set things straight."

It was very funny seeing a six year old boy seriously waving around a fairy wand and correcting wardrobe malfunctions. In the end, the boy-Amoretta ended up wearing a dinosaur t-shirt and sneakers. After Grabiner glamoured himself, she insisted on fixing up his clothing as well.

"Otherwise they'll  _definitely_ remember us, if you go into a small town gas station wearing wool trousers and tie," she said with a wrinkled nose.

"I'm in my shirt-sleeves," he said defensively.

"You certainly know how to slum it, Mr. Grabiner," she teased.

Amoretta had grown up on a farm, and was well acquainted with what regular people wore in regular circumstances. It took some work, but in the end she was satisfied.

"I look awful," Grabiner declared when she was finished, wrinkling his own nose. "And none of it appears to fit properly."

"Clothes horse," she indicted easily. "Most people don't wear tailored clothes, you know that, don't you? Most people wear clothes that come from a factory somewhere, where one size fits all, or most, anyway. At least now you don't look so obviously  _English_." She laughed, but then she paused, eyes wide. "But what on earth are we going to do about your  _received pronunciation_?" she asked with a giggle, delivering the last phrase in round voweled imitation. "That'll give you away faster than your wool trousers. They'll remember you  _for sure_."

Grabiner gave her a withering look and then waved her off with a snap of his wrist. "Don't expect me to imitate your awful nasal New England drawl," he said dismissively. "I intend to cast a  _Disinterest_ spell on the both of us, so the clerk ought not to be able to remember anything remarkable about us, provided we behave like normal human beings. The glamours are for the security cameras."

"Oh!" Amoretta brightened immediately, laying one short boyish finger against her cheek. "I suppose using a glamour would be very convenient if one were in the business of robbing banks."

"If a witch decided to rob banks," Grabiner said dryly, "She wouldn't rob them for very long."

"Velvet curtain?" she asked, although she already knew the answer.

He nodded once, and then finished his preparations with no further interruptions.

A short time later, they went into the small service station to buy a lottery ticket.

Halfway back to Iris Academy, when they were quite alone on a stretch of one-lane mountain road, Grabiner dispelled them while he was driving.

"Is that quite safe?" Amoretta asked with a positive thrill.

"Of course it is," Grabiner answered with a frown. "Under normal circumstances, driving requires very little thinking."

"Well, I'm not very good at it," Amoretta supplied. She wasn't either. She had failed to get a permit twice already.

"Frankly, I'm not surprised," he answered blandly. He kept his eyes on the road, although he did spare a brief sideways glance in her direction. "In any case, while driving remains a necessary skill when one lives in the United States of America, you will find that as a witch, you will likely be able to get along without being licensed. Particularly as I  _am_."

She nodded and studied the dark green fir trees as they passed by the windows.

"I'm sure I  _could_ learn to drive, if I practiced quite a lot, but I'm not really very interested in investing the time," she admitted. "There are a lot of other things I want to learn more than I want to learn to drive."

Grabiner shrugged. "That's your prerogative. Although you are a witch, it is important that you not neglect the skills that allow you to interact with the mundane world. The witch world would not be able to survive if it did not take advantage of the logistics that the population of the mundane world affords. If you let yourself get too cut off from the mundane world, you end up deranged and unable to function in society at all. There are a good number of older witches and wizards like that already," he warned. "They really cannot live any place but the Otherworld unless they employ a staff of handlers."

"Is your father like that?" Amoretta asked, curious.

Grabiner frowned and shook his head. "No," he said. "Not really. My father is eccentric, but he's perfectly capable of functioning in modern society. He's conservative and old-fashioned, about what you'd expect from an old tory bastard, and make no mistake: he's a wizard through and through, right down to the soles of his wretched feet. He holds a great number of worldviews that  _I_ consider archaic and that you would probably consider barbaric, but there are plenty of people in the world with similar feelings, and they're not all wizards. He is a great believer in a casted society, he supports traditional magocracy, and enjoys the social order so long as it's founded on his own privilege. To put it succinctly, he believes that by the virtue of their birth that certain individuals have a greater value as human beings than other people. In this he is hardly unique. If you're asking me 'can he drive?' I imagine he cannot, but his station in life is such that even if he were not a wizard, he would hardly do any driving anyway. The girl usually takes care of his needs."

"The girl?" asked Amoretta, her forehead wrinkling.

"The Jackdaw," Grabiner answered succinctly, as if he preferred not to discuss the subject further.

Amoretta leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window. "You really don't get along very well with him, do you?" she asked.

"My father uses people," Grabiner answered shortly. "He is only interested in people if he finds them amusing or if he has some other use for them. He cares about nothing so much as his own pleasure. He is pompous ass, drunk on his own personality, with no sense of the responsibility that ought to be implied by his position. He is an awful human being, and the world in general would be much improved if he simply dropped dead tomorrow, but as he has an incredibly perverse sense of humor, I imagine he will outlive the sun, just out of personal spite."

Amoretta winced. "I'm sorry - " she began, but Grabiner shook his head again.

"Don't be," he said crisply. "You've done nothing. If anything, I ought to apologize."

"Why?" she asked curiously, turning her head slightly to the side.

"Because I have cursed you with the worst father-in-law imaginable," he said grimly. "Creon would be better."

* * *

On Friday evening, when the winning numbers were scheduled to be announced, Grabiner prepared to drive himself to the village where he might make a phone call to determine the results of the draw. He had intended to go alone, but when Amoretta realized what he was up to, she begged to be allowed to accompany him, and so he had relented, thinking that the ride back to Iris Academy after the numbers were revealed might be a good time to begin dispelling her illusions that her luck was anything remarkable.

It was very dangerous to rely on luck, after all. It was a bad habit he would have to break her of.

She sat in the passenger seat of the van, swinging her legs idly, while he got out to make a call at the phone booth in the parking lot of a local service station - a different service station that the one from whence Grabiner had elected to purchase the ticket. He left the engine running, and as he closed the door behind him he could see her leaning down to fiddle with the knobs on the car's radio, searching for a station she found appealing.

In the small glass house of the phone booth, Grabiner took the thin printed ticket out and called the number that was indicated on its verso. After navigating a few automated menus, he was rewarded with the information he sought.

Back in the passenger seat of the van, Amoretta sang along with the radio, all the words to a song that she knew by virtue of the fact that her Uncle Carmine was a devoted fan of Glen Campbell.

She could see Grabiner clearly through the glass of the phone booth, saw him hang the pay phone's receiver back on its hook, and saw him carefully considering the slip of paper between his fingers. Then there was a brief flicker of flame and Amoretta knew he had burned the ticket the same way he burned the letters from his father, the same way he had burned the letter from Damien Ramsey.

When he returned to the van she was still lustily singing along to the chorus of Rhinestone Cowboy. He flipped off the radio with an abrupt twist, cutting off Amoretta's performance in mid-lyric. He said nothing, simply shifted the car out of park and pulled out onto the road.

Amoretta, put out that he would not let her listen to the radio, leaned back against the passenger's seat, pressing her feet against the floorboards. She blew the hair out of her face with the air of someone who has become accustomed to her partner's fits of temper.

Still Grabiner said nothing, merely frowned, keeping his eyes on the road. The twilight had gone while they were out, and the headlights carved a tunnel of light out of the falling darkness.

At last, Amoretta observed idly, "I won, didn't I?"

Grabiner cast a sidelong look at her, still frowning. "How can you be so sure?" he demanded.

She shrugged. "If I  _hadn't_ won, I'm sure you'd have let me know by now."

"All six numbers," he said very shortly. "Seventy-four million dollars."

Amoretta clapped her hands, as if she had just successfully picked up a winning rubber ducky in a carnival game.

"Do you have any understanding of what it means that you were capable of winning the  _national lottery_? Do you understand what the odds for that drawing were?" he asked, his temper suddenly rising. He pulled off the paved road onto a private gravel one and put the car into park again, turning to face her. "This isn't like beating your little school friends at cards, Amoretta," he said sharply.

"Why are you so angry with me?" she asked, her brow wrinkling. "You're the one who wanted me to play.  _I didn't want to_ ," she reminded him.

" _None of this makes any sense_ ," he complained angrily, slapping the steering wheel with an open hand. "This should not be possible, not for you to win the lottery on command, like a lark,  _like a joke_."

Amoretta sighed. "Did Logan put you up to this?" she asked.

Grabiner looked away from her, out at the fantastic shapes of dark trees that stood on the mountainside like needles intent on piercing the heavens.

"I took a bet," he answered defensively.

Amoretta sighed, then raised one finger. "The first thing that you should know is that you should  _never_ take a bet from Logan Phifer. He only bets on a sure thing. You may be positive that you can win, but if he bets you that he can throw a pie and hit the moon, you'd better believe he can." She bit her lip. "What did you lose?" she asked.

"I agreed to sponsor his Cards and Dice Club in the fall," he said with an audible frown, although he did not turn to look at her.

She was relieved. "Well," she said philosophically. "That's not so bad then. It could've been a lot worse. He went soft on you. He must like you."

Grabiner turned to eye her darkly. "I believe it is you that he likes, and he played with his gloves on as a courtesy extended  _to you._ " Grabiner rubbed his forehead with one hand. "But it still doesn't make any sense. How did he know? How could be  _so certain_  that you would win?"

"Because I'm lucky," she reminded him, leaning her forehead against the window.

"No," Grabiner cut in sharply, striking the steering wheel again. "That is not a sufficient explanation. What you exhibited this evening was not luck. Lucky people find money on the ground in the subway. They do not pick six random numbers out of millions of possible combinations and win seventy-four million dollars. If this is what you consider lucky, then you are not a goose that lays golden eggs, you're the damned City of El Dorado."

"It stands to reason," she began mildly, "That even among lucky people, there are people who are  _so lucky_  that they're lucky to  _those people_."

"To be that lucky you'd have to be - " here his tirade stopped cold and he became very quiet.

He silently stared at her for some minutes while she fidgeted in her seat. At last he wordlessly started the car again, and pulled back out onto the road.

"I'd have to be what?" she asked, riddled with uncertain curiosity.

"Nothing," he said, and he would say no more about it.

* * *

Although Amoretta was quite distracted by Grabiner's cryptic revelation, whatever it might have been, there was still much to occupy her mind and she soon put it out of her head, as he was determined to be closed-mouthed about it. There was no getting blood from a turnip, after all, and she had faith that he would reveal his thoughts to her in time, when he was more sure of them. In the meantime, she was very busy. Besides the rapidly approaching final examinations, there was the Thunder Call to prepare for.

The first stirrings of a spring storm came during the second week of April, and roused Amoretta from her slumbers like a marching band going by on the street outside her window. She had been waiting anxiously for the first storm, since Grabiner had told her it would be the harbinger of the very last holiday of the school year, apart from the May Day ball. As one of the officers of the student council of the freshman class, it was one of her responsibilities to help get the freshmen out of their beds and into the gymnasium for the Thunder Call.

She was so anxious to get about her duties that Grabiner had to raise his voice to get her to sit still and calm while he undid the ribbon that bound the two of them together. Even after an admonishment from him she didn't  _really_  sit still and calm, but instead wriggled in one place, like an overly excited puppy. He had frowned at her as she scrambled out of bed when she was finally free.

"I applaud your enthusiasm, Amoretta," he said, with all the applause of a man who does not particularly enjoy having his sleep disturbed. "But are you sure you'll be all right waking the freshman by yourself? Although it is not my responsibility, I am willing to do it in your stead."

She still had difficulty walking for long distances, or standing for any amount of time. She hadn't had any more fainting fits, but this had been more due to their combined oversight rather than a marked improvement in her health. It was understandable that Grabiner was wary of having her run up and down the hallways of the dorms and all over campus during a violent thunderstorm. Amoretta gave him her smile and did her best to reassure him.

"I won't have you doing my job for me," she said, shaking her head as she commenced flinging her pajamas off right in the middle of the bedroom in her haste to get dressed. Grabiner rapidly turned himself around in the bed until he was facing the wall and felt very ridiculous.

"I thought we had agreed that you wouldn't attempt to change in the front room any longer," he began with some exasperation.

"Sorry, sorry," she apologized lightly, although she did not pause undressing for even a moment. "I'm just in a hurry this time. I promise I'll only do it if I have a good reason."

"None of your reasons are  _ever_ good," he said direly.

She stuck her tongue out at him, but the gesture was lost as his back was turned.

"Anyway," she said, smoothly changing the subject. "I promise I'll be careful and go slowly, and sit when I need to sit. All the freshman will get to the gymnasium eventually," she laughed. "Besides, I won't be at it alone. Minnie will be helping me. She's supposed to wake the Butterflies, the Snakes, and the Toads. I just have to wake the Horses, the Wolves, and the Falcons."

Grabiner grunted a reply that indicated he was not entirely happy with her answer, but willing to accept it.

Her quick change act finally complete, Amoretta shoved her feet into her shoes and paused by the door as she unwarded it. Grabiner turned to look at her again, since she was now thankfully clothed.

Outside the wind positively howled, and Amoretta thrilled.

"I'll see you in the gymnasium!" she cried happily as she threw open the door, then turned back to throw him a kiss.

He did not accept it in good grace, and Amoretta was positive it hit the wall behind him, because her aim wasn't very good.

She pulled the door closed behind her and was soon off down the hallway to rouse her classmates.

* * *

Grabiner remained staring at the closed door for some minutes, listening to the torrential rain outside, before he at last got to his feet to dress himself.

When Grabiner arrived in the gymnasium, he found Petunia Potsdam already had the situation well in hand. All of the doors to the gymnasium were propped open with bricks and stones, so that the wild storm was present as both a spectator and a participant. Instead of the bright daytime lights, several balls of flame floated high in the air, near the ceiling, casting a warm, flickering glow over everything. Near the door, the students had already begun piling their shoes up as they hastily removed them in preparation for the dance.

The headmistress was busy at one end of the gymnasium, where various senior students were clustered around an assortment of percussion instruments. There were bongos, maracas, castanets, and even a great timpani drum. She was perhaps even more enthusiastic than the students about the Thunder Call, which was a considerable accomplishment, considering how much the student body enjoyed being out of bed and gallivanting about the campus after curfew.

Grabiner was not obliged to take his own shoes off because he did not, as a rule, join in the dance, despite Petunia Potsdam's vivid encouragement. His wife had not yet arrived by the time he took up his accustomed place against the wall, although several of her compatriots had already appeared. She at last arrived in the company of the dreadful Cards and Dice Club, leaning on the judiciously offered arm of Logan Phifer, while Luke Phifer trailed behind like a devoted puppy. Grabiner was preparing himself to go over and take charge of assisting her when Petunia Potsdam fluttered in and Logan turned Amoretta over to her. The headmistress pressed a tambourine into Amoretta's hands and led her to a stool which sat right next to the kettledrum.

Steve Kenyon was already at the kettledrum, sorting through timpani sticks, and he flashed a grin when Amoretta was seated on the stool to his right. Mr. Hoppity was stuck in the front of his robes, leaving his hands free, and the stuffed rabbit's ears nodded every time Steve took a test swing. Nearby, William Danson and Isobel were experimenting with their bongo drums.

Grabiner, seeing that his wife was safely seated, retired to the wall again, although he did slowly make his way around the perimeter of the gym until he stood behind the amateur musicians, ready to move forward if it transpired she did require his assistance.

On the floor the barefoot students were already twisting with excitement. The Thunder Call was a popular holiday at Iris Academy, and a welcome outlet to relieve some stress right before the last push toward final exams.

When the headmistress was at last assured that all the students had gathered, she threw her hands up above her head and yelled, "Let's welcome in the storm!"

At this signal the seniors began to pound their drums, shake their maracas, and rattle their castanets. Even Corrina, the beautiful, reserved senior from Snake Hall had a triangle that she jangled on so madly it was if she were anxious to call ranch hands in for dinner. Amoretta, seated so close to Big Steve's timpani that her chest trembled every time he thumped on it, began banging on her tambourine with gusto. It was a special privilege to be allowed to sit with the seniors and play one of the rain-welcoming instruments, but Amoretta was in no shape to dance with her classmates, who were already whooping and hollering on the floor. Petunia Potsdam had given her the tambourine so that she could still participate in the Thunder Call even though she could not dance.

Banging on her tambourine and trying to keep up with Big Steve's rhythm, Amoretta cast her eyes out over the orgiastic dancers. Those seniors who did not have a place among the drums were the most at ease on the floor, having already abandoned themselves to the beat. The juniors were not far behind, but the sophomores were more reserved, and most of the freshmen were rather tentative, even those who had come from witch families.

Amoretta was not particularly surprised to see that the Dansons needed little encouragement, although she did realize how unusual it was for the younger brother and sister to agree on anything at all for any length of time. Virginia and Donald were dancing wildly around Ellen, waving their arms and whooping as they stomped their feet. They were obviously attempting to get the serious witch to let her hair down. At the moment, Ellen was sort of hopping in place, rather like she was doing the hokey pokey all by herself.

The Phifer twins were also thoroughly enjoying themselves, although Logan had to rescue Luke when he danced into the same senior multiple times. They were both stomping their feet and clapping as if they wanted to rival the storm for sound, and soon enough they had begun to dance something like a bastardized landler, with Luke holding the train of his robe out prettily, as if he were a Bavarian maiden. Donald and Virginia soon became interested in this, clapping hard and egging them on as Luke and Logan's landler became manic with sound and energy.

Elsewhere on the floor Barbara had revealed that besides being a ninja she had the heretofore unknown talent of  _clogging_ , and she was clogging in bare feet with such ferocity that Amoretta worried she would wear a hole in the floor. Near her Suki Sato was undulating weirdly like a sea anemone to some beat she heard only in her own mind.

Although the polished wooden floor of the gymnasium was covered by flailing students, it soon transpired that rings of clapping onlookers formed around the most impressive dancers. Amoretta watched with interest as Isobel, abandoning her bongo for a pair of castanets, made her way to the center of the floor and began to shimmy like it was going out of style. Nearby, Minnie Cochran was gyrating and yodeling with her hands above her head, and the two provided a striking contrast to one another.

It was one of the most exciting celebrations that Amoretta had ever been to.

She had been unable to find Grabiner in the crowd despite how she had looked for him, but she wasn't entirely surprised by this, since he had assured her that he had no intentions of dancing. Still, she could  _feel_ that he was there with her, and at last she located him. By turning fully around on her stool and craning her neck she managed to spot him where he leaned against the wall in the shadows, his arms crossed over his chest. He was watching her intently, so she waved her tambourine at him, but he made no reply.

_That's right,_  she thought to herself as she turned back around to look at the dancers.  _He doesn't approve of fun. It makes him uneasy._

Big Steve distracted her from her ruminations with a long roll on his kettledrum and she was soon clapping against the tambourine again.

_This isn't a festival he grew up with,_  Amoretta reflected.  _I guess he's watching us like a cultural anthropologist._

Of course, it wasn't a festival she had grown up with either, but the Thunder Call seemed very natural to her. It was invigorating. Although the dance floor was hot with bodies and the gym hummed with energy, the rainy wind that lashed in through the open doors kept the place from becoming close and stuffy. She felt very much alive and would have given quite a lot to be able to go out onto the floor and dance with her friends as she had done during the Dark Dance in the autumn.

_It's all right,_ she thought to herself.  _There's always next year, after all._

She hoped she would be well enough to dance next year, if she was careful with her health and worked hard to get stronger.

But as Big Steve pounded on his timpani she realized that this night would only come once. Next year she would be a sophomore and Big Steve, William, Balthasar, Isobel, Corrina, and Angela Kirsch would be out in the wide, wild world and not safe in the garden of Iris Academy. She would only have one freshman Thunder Call, and this was it.

Rather than making her melancholy, this caused her heart to jump as if a current of electricity had been run through her body and she held the tambourine high above her head as she struck it with her open palm, wriggling in her seat.

And then began the fire spinning.

Amoretta had been curious about it from the first moment Grabiner had forbidden it to freshmen. Amoretta could not even make a spark on her own, so Grabiner's warning had obviously not been intended for her. The two younger Dansons both excelled in red magic, however, and were the more likely target of Grabiner's remonstrations.

As soon as the fire-spinning began, William Danson gave his place at the bongo drums up to another senior and made his way to the center of the floor, where he began to paint the air with thin streams of leaping flame. It was almost like a ribbon dance, only instead of a ribbon, he danced with live fire.

_That must take an incredible amount of control,_  Amoretta thought with awe.

William Danson was known for his precision and control when it came to evocative magical effects. Although other students also spun fire as they danced, only one other student could rival William Danson's display, and that was Angela Kirsch, who seemed intent on upstaging him. Beside Amoretta, Big Steve rolled the drum hard as the two seniors danced off against one another in a circle of clapping, whooping onlookers.

"Last year there were three of them," Big Steve observed, yelling to be heard over the crash of his timpani.

"Really?" Amoretta called back as she banged on her tambourine.

Big Steve nodded once emphatically. "Ramsey," he hollered. "Ramsey was the other really good fire spinner in our class."

Reflexively, Amoretta put her hand over the concealed burn on her shoulder and Big Steve grimaced.

"Didn't mean to bring you down," he shouted. "Just thought you might like to know."

Amoretta nodded once, biting her lip, then commenced banging her tambourine again.

"Don't you want to spin?" she asked.

As a hopeful professional Bounders combatant, Amoretta knew his control was good.

"Nope," he yelled back, shaking his head again. "Don't do fire. Do lightning. Too many people in here. Too dangerous."

She nodded back, bouncing up and down on her stool.

In the center of the floor, Angela Kirsch seemed to be reaching her limit. She was very white, and sweat ran down her face as she concentrated on keeping her streams spinning as she danced around them. At last her spell fizzled and she had to bend over and brace herself against her knees, panting. William Danson kept spinning amid wild cheering.

The Thunder Call went on like a thumping, throbbing heartbeat until at last the storm retreated as the first rays of dawn painted the eastern sky. Exhausted and near delirium, the students half-heartedly sorted through the piled up shoes and staggered off toward their dorm rooms. They had enough time to shower and have breakfast before class, but not enough time for a nap.

Most of them had post-celebration headaches, but as Petunia Potsdam cheerfully reminded them as they scattered, they were required to be in class promptly at the bell if they had scheduled themselves for tuition. There was no time for an official holiday this close to examinations.

Amoretta lingered on her stool as the other students milled off. At last only she, Potsdam, and Grabiner remained in the gymnasium, the headmistress singing little ditties as she busied herself teleporting the various percussion instruments away.

Grabiner had just crossed the empty floor to stand next to Amoretta when the headmistress brightly asked, "So my little dandelion clock, what did you think of the Thunder Call?"

"I liked it very much," Amoretta admitted with flushed cheeks. "It was really thrilling."

"It's meant to be," the headmistress agreed, absently holding up one lone shoe that had been left behind after all the students had gone.

"Do you think I might see a dragon someday?" Amoretta asked hopefully.

The headmistress laughed. "If you do, you had better hope it's from a distance," she said. "Even a bag of lucky charms such as yourself would inevitably end up as a snack. Do you know what a Dragonlord is, my darling?"

Amoretta was forced to shake her head because she did not.

"It's a wizard who can speak to a dragon and expect a reply, rather than just being gobbled up, straight off," she said with a wink. "The great wyrms, well, they're beyond the ken of witches. The eldest have lived for thousands of years. To put that in perspective, not even the most mythic of wizards are said to have lived even a thousand years. To speak with a dragon, that's like speaking with a god."

Grabiner held out his hand for the tambourine. "So you can dismiss any wild notions you might be entertaining concerning  _befriending_ a dragon. The place you're most likely to see one is in a picture book."

"Yes sir," Amoretta answered dejectedly with a bit of a pout, but then she brightened again. "I bet you'd be awfully good at fire-spinning," she said to Grabiner as she passed the tambourine to him and watched as it disappeared from his hands to return to an unknown storage closet. "Why don't you participate? William Danson may be good, but there's no way he's as good as you are."

Petunia Potsdam, who still held the lone shoe in one of her hands giggled, apparently much amused by the suggestion.

"You've learned pretty quickly that flattery is the fastest way to get anywhere with Hieronymous, I see," she waved one hand lightly at them, as if she found them both adorable and charming.

Grabiner scowled.

"I dislike noise," he reminded her, offering his hand to her to help her off the stool. When she was on her feet again, Petunia Potsdam teleported the stool away. "Besides," he said. "It is very bad form for a teacher to upstage his students, and I don't go in for vulgar displays."

"Well, I do," Amoretta admitted unabashedly. "I think vulgar things are awfully interesting."

"Of course you do," Grabiner said with a roll of his eyes. It was entirely in keeping with her character. Such a revelation was not enough to surprise him in these later days. "Would you care to go to breakfast?" he asked.

Amoretta nodded, because all the noise and activity had left her feeling quite hollow. Grabiner looked back at Petunia Potsdam, who was still considering the lone shoe.

"Do you need anything else, headmistress?" he asked.

She was startled out of her reverie by the question and gave them a knowing smile.

"Go on, my turtle doves. Go and enjoy your breakfast together," she suggested with a wink. "There's hardly anything left to do here."

Although Grabiner did not appreciate her tone, he nodded once at the headmistress, and he and Amoretta departed for an early breakfast.

* * *

The evening after the Thunder Call, Grabiner sought out Logan Phifer in Falcon Hall, with  _the Nine Circles of Fire_  in tow. The boy was pleased to receive Grabiner's visit, and while Grabiner dreaded the smug look of superiority he feared Logan Phifer would greet him with, he was surprised to find that the freshman mafia don took no especial interest in the fact that he had won their bet.

It was as if he had already predicted the outcome. It was entirely as Amoretta had warned him: Logan Phifer only bet on a sure thing.

Unwilling to talk in the hall, Logan cordially invited Grabiner into his room. Jacob Blaising was nowhere to be seen.

"You can speak freely here," Logan said. "Ever since that incident with the fire, I've made sure the place is properly warded."

Grabiner frowned and prepared to return the book, but Logan shook his head.

"You may as well keep it for the moment," he said smoothly. "I've already consulted it myself, and it seems like it would be useful to your research, or perhaps just to satisfy your curiosity," he bowed his head deferentially. "I'll let you know when I need it back."

Grabiner frowned. "I am not in the habit of leaving myself beholden to students, Mr. Phifer."

The corner of Logan's mouth quirked up. "And yet you are," he reminded easily. "The Cards and Dice Club in the fall, Professor Grabiner," he said, raising one finger. "But you're misunderstanding me. I'm not letting you keep  _the Nine Circles of Fire_  because I expect a favor in return. I'm letting you keep it because I think it will do the most benefit to me and mine in your care." He raised both of his eyebrows and said easily, "You'll know when I'm doing you a favor, Professor Grabiner, and what I expect in return."

Grabiner's mouth became a thin line.

"What exactly is it that you want, Mr. Phifer?" he demanded.

Logan shrugged. "At the moment?" he asked. "At the moment I am most interested in making sure that the members of my family remain safe and well-cared for. The Fiddler is a member of that family, just like my own sister," Logan covered his heart lightly with a hand, but the smile that quirked up at the corner of his mouth made it difficult to determine exactly how sincere he was being. "You see, Professor Grabiner, when you married the Fiddler, you married into my family. It is in my best interest to assist you when I think it's prudent."

Grabiner frowned and pushed the book toward Logan Phifer.

"Forgive me if I don't believe I require your assistance, Mr. Phifer," he said darkly.

Logan raised both his hands as if he were entirely unwilling to let his fingers come in contact with the book.

"Now, now Professor," he said mildly. "Don't be stubborn and refuse something that's offered in good faith just on principle."

"And how can I be certain that it  _is_ offered in good faith?" Grabiner demanded.

"Because it's not in my best interests to double-cross you, Professor Grabiner," Logan answered with a wave of his hand. "You ought to trust me."

"I think I shan't," Grabiner said, and pressed the book toward Logan Phifer again. Logan still refused to take it.

"You may as well resign yourself to receiving my help, sir," Logan said with a sigh. "Say you leave that book here, with me. Say you throw it down on the ground, which I know you won't because you're bred too well for that, and you like books too much. So let's just say you gently place it on the ground and leave. Tomorrow, I give that book over to Amoretta and it ends up in your rooms anyway. One way or another, I'm going to make sure you keep possession of it."

"I'll forbid it," Grabiner warned. "Are you threatening me, Mr. Phifer?" he demanded.

"I'm not threatening you," Logan said, raising both of his hands in self-defense. "I'm simply explaining your position. I wonder," he said tilting his head to the side, "How much success you usually have when forbidding Amoretta to do things."

It was a strike as critical as any of Petunia Potsdam's, but Grabiner refused to give any tells.

"Are you suggesting that my wife is more likely to listen to your advice than she is to mine?" Grabiner pressed, his temper rising even as his patience fled.

Logan shrugged again.

"I'm suggesting that if she thinks you're refusing help just to be stubborn, that she'll  _assist_ you in overcoming this weakness of your character," he said with a smile. "You don't have to like me, Professor Grabiner. You don't have to like the fact that I've resolved to put my resources at your disposal. All you have to do is  _accept my help._ "

Grabiner scowled but said nothing in reply, simply laid the book at Logan Phifer's feet and turned on his heel and departed Falcon Hall.

* * *

As Logan Phifer had prophesied, the next afternoon  _the Nine Circles of Fire_  reappeared in Grabiner's quarters.

He had resolved that the best course of action was to simply ignore the book entirely.

He had other things to concern himself with, after all, and he  _utterly refused_ to have his hand forced.

* * *

The fact that Amoretta was a veritable wheel of fortune had given Hieronymous Grabiner much to think about. Of course, the lottery win was the most damning evidence of all, like a bloody knife, or a handgun covered with fingerprints, but having at last accepted that Amoretta was obscenely lucky, Grabiner had resolved it was in her best interest for him to try and determine exactly how her luck functioned. The only way to understand the shape of an unusual phenomenon was to test it repeatedly, and in this occupation he employed Luke Phifer and Donald Danson as guinea pigs.

For their willing cooperation, Grabiner offered the rare prize of merits, which the boys were eager to receive, given that final examinations were a little over two weeks away.

"After all," he said grimly, "It's not as if studying will avail you at this late date."

And this was how the four of them came to spend one Saturday in Grabiner's red magic classroom with half a dozen packs of unopened bicycle playing cards and a basket of six sided dice.

At Amoretta's suggestion, the boys pushed a number of the desks together to make a central table, and arranged chairs around it. The boys flopped down in their chairs, and Amoretta joined them, leaning her chin on her hands. All three of them were obviously waiting for Grabiner to do something.

"Well?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Amoretta sighed audibly. "If you really want to see how I play, then you're going to have to be our fourth. You wouldn't let us call Logan, so that means you have to play."

He was not particularly enthused by her suggestion but realized that she had a point. He was entirely unwilling to have Logan Phifer present at these luck trials, but many games of chance, particularly card games, required at least four participants. Grabiner knew that Donald Danson and Luke Phifer were most certainly Logan's creatures and would inform him of the results of the tests, but in the end, Grabiner was almost certain of the fact that Logan Phifer already had this data at his fingertips. He had brandished a moleskine notebook on the evening of the bingo game, claiming that it contained the records of all the games played by his dubious Cards and Dice Club during that school year.

Logan Phifer had already done much of the work that Grabiner proposed to begin from scratch. The young Falcon was already satisfied that he understood how Amoretta's luck behaved, and when it could be counted on to function. If Grabiner merely requested Logan's data, he would likely save himself a great deal of work, and the boy was certain to courteously comply, since he seemed eager to assist Grabiner for reasons of his own.

But Grabiner was unwilling to rely on Logan's data, not for something so critical as this. He would conduct his own experiments, record his own data, and draw his own conclusions. It could be their lives in the balance at some point, dependent on how well he understood the limitations of her luck. It was not something he was willing to trust to anyone else.

Besides, he was unwilling to accept the Phifer boy's help on principle. That boy was angling for something greater than he was willing to reveal. Grabiner refused to trust him. At Iris Academy he might be a schoolboy, but Grabiner recognized the Phifer name as belonging to one of the greatest trading houses of Reverie. At some point in the not too distant future, Logan Phifer would be a merchant prince of the City of Gates. He was already hard at work building his organization. He had likely started as soon as he had learned to talk. Such a boy could not be trusted. He might be an ally today, and an enemy tomorrow. Grabiner was not willing to bet in favor of Logan Phifer's long-term loyalty.

Grabiner took a seat, folding his hands in front of his face and leaned forward against them. At his right lay a notebook and a pen ready for him to record the results of the day's games.

"Very well," he said at last. "Let's play."

They played. Twenty-one, five card stud, craps, hearts, even games like Go Fish and Old Maid. What Grabiner soon came to realize was that Amoretta's luck fluctuated over the course of a game. She did not necessarily always win every hand. Sometimes she lost hands, and sometimes she seemed to play very badly, but in the end, she won game after game after game, sometimes with strange and spectacular plays.

She seemed to really honestly enjoy playing as well, although at one point Donald Danson let out a snicker.

"The Fiddler's going easy on us," he suggested, and Amoretta playfully stuck her tongue out at them.

"There's no reason to play seriously at a time like this," she laughed and Grabiner frowned.

"Play seriously," he commanded, because he was worried that her lackadaisical attitude might skew his research.

Amoretta shook her head.

"I told you," she said, "There's no reason to do something like that at a time like this. I don't have to play seriously. I can just have a good time."

"Play seriously," he insisted, setting his teeth against one another. "I am sacrificing  _my time_  in an attempt to understand this madness, so you could at least have the courtesy to cooperate."

Amoretta's smile faded and she set her mouth in a thin line.

"Is that really what you want?" she asked quietly.

"Of course it is," Grabiner answered angrily, his brows drawing together. "I do not normally enjoy  _wasting_ my afternoons playing cards with juvenile delinquents."

"Luke," Amoretta murmured softly. "Get Professor Grabiner an unopened deck of cards."

Luke hastened to reply, sliding the sealed deck along the desks until it came to rest in front of Grabiner.

"Open that deck yourself, and shuffle it," she said. "Then deal me a hand. You can deal any five cards you want. You can deal from the top of the deck, from the bottom of the deck, from the middle of the deck, I won't complain. Just deal five cards."

Grabiner frowned, because it had been a long time since he had seen Amoretta so dry and brittle. The look in her eyes was something between resignation and defiance.

He opened the pack of cards with the little knife he kept in his pocket and proceeded to shuffle them very slowly and carefully.

Then he dealt her five cards.

She made no move to touch them.

"Do you know what the highest hand in draw poker is?" she asked, not taking her eyes off of him.

His eyes narrowed. "It's a flush, isn't it? A straight flush."

"That is correct," Amoretta answered, leaning back in her chair and looking tired. "And the highest straight flush is a royal flush." She idly gestured to the cards that lay face down on the table in front of her. "That's a royal flush. Spades, probably."

"You can't be certain of that," Grabiner scoffed with a frown. It was perhaps silly to doubt her now, since he had already witnessed the miraculous quality of her luck, but she was being petulant, and he did not like being defied.

"Can't I?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. She glanced sidelong at the other Phifer who sat at the table with them. "Flip 'em over and show the man, Luke."

Luke shot a sidelong look at Grabiner, because it was impossible to miss the signs of the storm that was brewing in the room. Luke seemed to be debating on whether to risk being expelled by Grabiner in a fit of temper, or to stand in the service of Amoretta. In the end, he chose Amoretta, and flipped the cards in front of her over, one by one.

They did not even need to be rearranged. There, one by one, stood all the black royals of the suit of spades along with the ten and the ace.

Amoretta laid a pale, slender finger down to indicate the queen of spades.

"Black Maria," she said, "Calamity Jane. That's me, Professor Grabiner. I'm the Fiddler. I'm the Queen of Spades. No matter what your fortune is, fair or foul, those that dance must pay the fiddler."

She frowned and stood up, rubbing the back of her hand across her forehead.

"Now if you'll excuse me," she said, "I'm really tired of playing games this evening."

And then without another word, Amoretta departed the classroom, leaving Grabiner to stare at the flush of spades and his few pages of notes and results.

Donald Danson had the good sense to leave with Luke Phifer before either of them were forced to experience the foul side of Grabiner's temper.

* * *

Grabiner found his life difficult during the days following the incident involving the flush of spades. It wasn't as if Amoretta treated him poorly. She had spent the remainder of the afternoon out of his sight somewhere, and when she returned to the room that night it was with the same cheerful smile she always gave to him, her earlier unhappiness clearly forgotten. She made no mention of the scene in the red magic classroom, and neither did he.

But he thought about it quite a lot: the Queen of Spades. He thought about her, and about the madness of her character, the sheer insanity that surrounded the events that had drawn them inexorably together. He thought of her luck, as divine as lightning from heaven, and he wondered about the things that as yet, remained unseen.

There were things that he did not know, and this left him feeling profoundly unsettled, particularly when he considered the curse mark on her shoulder.

Nothing made sense. Nothing about her made any sense.

It was all impossible.

And yet somehow, it appeared to be true.

At last, one evening Grabiner could not allow a particular question to linger unanswered any longer.

"How did you know?" he asked point-blank, with no explanation.

Amoretta, who had been sitting on the floor in front of one of the bookshelves, her notes spread around her, looked up only half-aware.

"Mmm?" she asked, distracted, because she was deeply embroiled in attempting to understand how one neutralized various kinds of poisons.

"How did you know indigo was my favorite color?" he asked, his arms crossed over his chest.

At this she looked up, and he caught the gleam of lamplight in her dark eyes. Silently she stood and crossed the room to his desk, where his grimoire lay closed. The tail of a bookmark was just visible among the pages, and she brushed her fingers against it lightly.

"That's the only proper bookmark I've ever seen you use," she said. "You use all sorts of things to mark the places in books: scraps of paper, pencils, old receipts, but you only use one bookmark in your grimoire, and it's that one."

The bookmark was indigo, made of ribbon and string braided together. Through the center of it ran a jetty lock of hair. Violet had made it for him some years ago, using scraps of old clothing and her own hair. She had called it an experimentation in sympathetic magic. It was one of the few things that he retained from that era of his life.

He turned his back on her.

"I see," he said flatly. "So you guessed."

"No," Amoretta denied easily, returning to sit amid her notes and open books. "I knew. It just seemed obvious. Do you know what my favorite color is?" she asked curiously.

"Me," he answered shortly, but he would not turn to look at her.

"There," she said with a laugh, as she turned her attentions back to her studies. "See, I told you it was obvious."


	14. Twelve: Scarcely Anything Else in the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love each other dearly always. There is scarcely anything else in the world but that: to love one another.
> 
> \-- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Grabiner was working late again. Whether it was because of his unexpected nuptials, the complications of his spring living arrangements, or due to some other, as yet unknown reason, he found that he had to spend more time than was usually necessary to prepare the obstacles of the final examinations. Or perhaps it was not really that he had to spend more time at it, but that he actively noticed the time he spent.

Previously he had never really paid attention to how late he worked or how often, particularly in exam season, but these days, these days he noticed. He noticed the time that passed because when he finally went upstairs to his bedroom there was always someone waiting up for him, reading, or sitting at the desk and studying late into the night. Amoretta could not go to sleep before he was there to ward her, so she was always awake when he came in, although sometimes she could not conceal her yawns when she greeted him with a smile. It was strange how much of a fixture she had already become in his life. It was as if he had been shipwrecked on a deserted island and long lost the will to count off the endless days with scratches on the wall, and then she had come and given time meaning again.

When he worked late, he knew she was waiting for him, sitting up in her fluffy pink bathrobe, her legs tucked underneath her, and reading something she had pilfered from his library. Or perhaps she would be sitting on the floor like a turk, leaning against one of the shelves and playing Old Maid with Kavus. She and the manus seemed to get along so well it was worrying to him: like he ought to expect conspiracies to form in his own home.

 _His own home._  He had never really thought those words to himself before, or at least, he had not thought them in a very long time. But the addition of one skinny little girl to the equation of his life had changed the way he thought about things. She did not have to fill the windowsill up with pots of geraniums and wear a frilled apron; she had turned his rooms into a home simply by moving into them. There was someone waiting for him. She would smile and perhaps she would tease him over something silly, making a terrible joke or one of those literary references she thought was  _so clever_. She would laugh and tell him about her evening, or ask a question about something she thought was difficult. He would take a shower because he was tired and filthy from mucking about in the dungeons, and then she would crawl into bed with him and snuggle up against his shoulder, or cling on his arm while chattering about nonsense until she fell asleep.

It was very relaxing to listen to her nonsense. It was not something he could have really qualified, but just being near her was calming. He was not a man who shared himself with others, and perhaps it made very little sense that he should find comfort in revealing his weaknesses to her, but some time ago she had ceased being an unwelcome complication and had come to be a complication that he depended upon.

Petunia Potsdam was fond of saying, "We all have our little luxuries," and she had become one of his. It wasn't that she didn't sometimes make him cross. She often made him cross with her ridiculous shenanigans, but somehow, that was part of her impossible charm. She dragged him this way, and she dragged him that way, always into unfamiliar territory, always against his will, with his feet dug hard into the ground as he braced himself. But she was an irresistible force, and he followed her because he was captured in orbit around her.

He had been captured once before.

The terrible thing about happiness was that it could be broken.

If one was vaguely miserable all of the time, there were few surprises. Everything was grey and familiar. One  _existed_. It was safe to exist.

But with Amoretta, he had not simply been existing. He had been learning how to  _live_ again.

Living was dangerous. Feeling was dangerous.

Those were truths he knew in his bones.

And yet, being with her, living with her, it was as natural as breathing. She was an explosion of laughter, of color, of sound. She seemed to be in love with the universe.

And him.

She was in love with the universe, and him.

It was about time to finish up for the evening.

* * *

Amoretta was sitting at the foot of the bed, lounged back against Grabiner's trunk and comparing two different texts on the challenges of complex teleportation and gate magic. She had a notebook on her knee and was jotting down her thoughts rather haphazardly. Grabiner often complained about her note-taking, because the notes she produced were of no use to anyone but herself, since she often used her own weird shorthand, wrote in no apparent order all over the page, and drew doodles of trees and animals when she was perplexed by something. She had tried to claim her notes were encoded, so as to prevent the foolish from learning the great secrets of her mind, but the look he had given her when she had made this claim clearly indicated exactly whom he believed to be the fool.

She had been sitting at the foot of the bed and working for perhaps an hour, listening to the repaired alarm clock patiently ticking away the seconds of the evening, when Kavus appeared suddenly in front of her.

The look on his face was impassive as he tapped his lips with one clawed finger.

"I think you'd best come with me, mistress," he said very calmly.

Amoretta tilted her head to the side curiously.

"What is it, Kavus?" she asked, putting her pen down. Although the djinni rarely expressed any emotions outside of mild amusement, Amoretta accurately sensed that he had withdrawn even this small bit of his genuine personality. The Kavus who stood before her was a manus, all business and no pleasure.

"The master has encountered," Kavus paused, as if considering his words, "A difficulty. He is in no immediate danger, and he has not requested your assistance, but in my opinion it would be best if you went to him."

Amoretta was on her feet in a moment.

"He hasn't been hurt, has he?" Amoretta asked immediately, running to the bathroom for her robe. "Should I call the headmistress?"

The djinni shook his head once. "No," he said. "He has not suffered any physical injuries. Of course, you may contact the headmistress at your discretion, mistress, but I think the master would perhaps not welcome such an action. As I said, he is in no immediate danger. I came to you because I believe that you may be the best person to assist him at this time. He has requested no assistance, and will likely be perfectly fine without it, but I believe you may be able to be of service to him."

Amoretta didn't even spend a moment considering Kavus's suggestion, simply nodded once as she slipped her feet into her shoes.

"All right, Kavus," she said. "Where is he?"

"Dungeon level twenty-five," Kavus answered easily.

Amoretta's eyes widened as she automatically reached for her wand.

"Twenty-five?" she asked in wonder. "I didn't even know the dungeons went that deep. I don't think I've been past level seven."

"It is my understanding that freshman generally do not venture past floor ten," the djinni said. "The master has been preparing the senior examinations, therefore he is on floor twenty-five."

Amoretta shook her head in wonderment as she unwarded and unlocked the door.

"Just how deep do the dungeons underneath the school go, Kavus? Do you know?" she asked.

"I believe the man-made floors number up to one hundred sub-basements," he said. "As for how many natural floors there may be below level one hundred, I do not have that information, mistress."

"Man-made?" she asked, pausing with her hand flat against the door, "Natural? What do you mean, Kavus? How can you have a naturally occurring dungeon? It's not like they grow like cauliflower."

"The dungeon of Iris Academy is left in its wild state past level thirty, mistress," the djinni explained. "Lower than level thirty, the residents of the dungeon are not policed. It is common for the denizens of an unpoliced dungeon to expand it themselves, at their own speed, as more territory is required."

"So there are hodags and things just tunneling around down there?" Amoretta asked, startled, and the djinni nodded.

"Yes, mistress. Hodags and other things," he answered seriously.

Amoretta frowned thoughtfully. "Kavus, will I be all right to go down to level twenty five? I mean, is it safe for me to go to him? How am I even going to get there? I've never been to floor twenty-five before, and that's quite a ways down, so I don't think I can teleport, besides, the lower levels are all warded - "

"I have taken the liberty of acquiring the master's passkey," Kavus said simply, and held out his clawed hand to offer a plain palm-sized stone, covered with engraved runes.

Amoretta took it tentatively, turning her head to the side. "But if you have this, he won't have any way to come back up himself, will he?"

The djinni shrugged. "He is unlikely to make any attempts to return to the surface in the near future, mistress, at least that was my impression of the situation."

Amoretta bit her lip. "He'll be angry if I go to him," she predicted.

"He will most certainly be angry," the djinni agreed. "But I think he will also be grateful."

"It is dangerous, isn't it?" she asked the djinni honestly.

"Possibly," the djinni answered noncommittally, and Amoretta had her answer.

"All right then," she said as she locked and warded the door behind her. "You lead the way. Time's wasting."

The djinni nodded once and then departed toward the lower levels with Amoretta following close behind him.

* * *

They descended by stairs to the first level of the dungeon, which was quite safe, Kavus assured her. This was familiar territory, so Amoretta was not worried. She followed him down narrow stone corridors until they came across a strange gate, and Kavus indicated she ought to produce the passkey. The ward stone unlocked the gate in front of them, and Amoretta pushed through it, with Kavus behind her.

In front of her yawned an open shaft, with a narrow steel cage suspended in it by long chains that were hooked to a complex pulley system attached to the ceiling. A narrow gangplank of metal ran from the metal cage to the stone floor, spanning the open shaft.

Amoretta swallowed audibly as she looked at the way the metal basket swung freely in the air, swaying slightly, despite the lack of an air current to move it.

"It's the elevator to the lower floors," Kavus indicated, as if the purpose of the little birdcage was not obvious.

With a nod of resolve, Amoretta took one great step from the solid floor into the swinging basket, bypassing the narrow gangplank completely. Once she was in the elevator, the gangplank snapped up, closing the open side of the cage. Once closed, the basket turned itself in a circle, rather like a tire swing. Amoretta clutched frantically to the guard rails and eventually the elevator stopped spinning, although every little move she made caused it to shimmy and jump.

Kavus lightly floated over the black gulf and came to hover at her side.

"You must tell it which floor you wish to stop at," Kavus indicated. "This elevator descends to level five."

Amoretta nodded, still clinging to the rail around the edge of the basket. Then she paused.

"Only to level five?" she asked. "Don't I need to go to level twenty-five?"

"Each elevator only descends five levels. Then you must move to the next elevator," Kavus shook his head. "You would not wish to descend twenty-five levels at once in any case."

Amoretta accepted this explanation and then cleared her throat.

"Dungeon level five," she said with what she hoped was authority.

She didn't even have time for a look of horror before the elevator dropped out from under her, screaming away into the darkness.

* * *

By the time Amoretta reached dungeon level twenty-five she had grown somewhat accustomed to the startling behavior of the dungeon's elevators, so that the last drop was not so much terrifying as it was simply upsetting to her stomach.

As she hopped out of the final elevator and faced the closed gate in front of her, Kavus offered her a word of warning.

"There are beasts loose on this floor of the dungeon," he said. "And traps you are not yet prepared to deal with. Please allow me," he said shortly, and she saw the djinni flip his wrist easily as he drew a rune in the air.

Suddenly she felt as if she had leaped into the deep end of a swimming pool, and with some astonishment she realized she was floating about a foot off the ground. Her hair billowed up around her face, as if she were truly experiencing free-fall, or zero gravity.

"If you could not float, then it would not be safe to travel this floor," Kavus said shortly. "There are electrified floors and pit traps scattered around this area."

Amoretta's eyes widened, "Do they want to test the seniors or  _kill them_?" she asked with concern.

"If a wizard cannot overcome dangers such as these easily, then that wizard is not likely to survive long after their graduation," Kavus said with the barest hint of his discomfiting smile.

Amoretta felt herself pale slightly.

"In any case," the djinni continued, "I have provided you with a little support, as I am allowed to do in extreme circumstances, as per my instructions. I am afraid you must handle your own defense from this point on. My standing orders forbid much beyond observation."

"Because Hieronymous doesn't trust you," Amoretta observed.

"That is correct, mistress," the manus agreed.

"You'd still like to gobble me up, wouldn't you?" Amoretta asked thoughtfully.

The djinni nodded and waved his hand lightly. "I would, if I were free to do so, but as you recall, I am bound into the service of your family. What I wish to do and what I am able to do are two entirely different things." He folded one arm before his chest and made a half bow. "As I am in the service of your family, I am required to be of service to you, insofar as the master has allowed me to do so."

Amoretta waved him off dismissively. "Oh, I trust you, Kavus." she shrugged. "I mean, I trust that you'd eat me if you could have your way, but I don't think you're a bad guy. You are who you are. I wouldn't have come down here if I didn't trust you."

The djinni chuckled briefly. "I am touched by your faith, mistress," he said. Then his eyes shifted to the gate. "Once we exit this room, we will no longer be in warded territory. As your understanding of force and evocation is so poor, I will undertake to pull you along behind me," he said, and offered her his hand. "Otherwise you would find it impossible to move yourself along the corridors without touching the walls, some of which are electrified."

"What is this, Alcatraz?" Amoretta asked, worried. Kavus did not deign to respond to her joke this time.

She took the djinni's hand and he tugged her along to the gate. They glided together easily. It was like lying flat on a pool float and having a swimmer pull her along. Her hair floated out behind her in a stream. If she hadn't been so worried about Grabiner and the dangers that lay ahead, she would have found the sensation truly enjoyable.

Before unlocking the gate ahead of them, Amoretta paused to push out with her consciousness as she cast the spell  _Awareness_. She was not particularly surprised to see that the corridors ahead of her were a maze of branching passages.

"I can feel him," Amoretta admitted to the manus. "He's in that direction," she said, pointing off in the direction that her spell-awareness indicated was the west. "Although I don't know what's in between he and us. Can you lead me, Kavus?"

"Generally," the djinni said, "Although I did not much explore this floor. When I sensed the master had encountered his difficulty, I teleported near him to assess the situation, and then I teleported back to your side to fetch you. He is in a small room, perhaps ten by ten? There is one door of wood which is neither locked nor warded."

"You can teleport in and out of here despite the wards in the dungeon?" she asked with curiosity.

Kavus nodded once and answered, "It is because my way of moving is not the same as yours. The dungeon is not warded against true planar travel, not from points inside the campus."

"I think I understand," Amoretta said, then she balled her hands into fists. "Well then," she said practically. "Since we don't really know the way, we'll just have to follow our hearts."

"As you say, mistress," the djinni responded deferentially.

Amoretta used the passkey to unlock the gate before her and they both sailed through it, out into the wild unknown.

* * *

Although the territory was not friendly, they progressed well enough. Amoretta teleported anything that moved into the nearest oubliette. Since her first practical lesson in dueling over spring break she had spent much time in the afternoons trying to improve the speed of her teleportation spells. Now she was relatively quick as well as accurate, although there was certainly still much room for improvement. Fortunately Kavus's sharp senses gave her fair warning before they encountered hostile entities, so they reached the promised door in relatively short order, without much incident.

After they passed through the door, Kavus released her hand and she touched down lightly.

"The floor in this room is safe," he advised.

She nodded.

"Ward the door," she said simply. "You can do that for me, can't you? Throw a Sanctuary on it, please. It's really best we're not disturbed by whatever it is that's wandering around out there."

Kavus nodded once, and moved to ward the door while Amoretta turned to study the small open space in front of her. The room was very dark, and while Kavus himself gave off a faint glow that lit the area immediately next to the door, there were no magical torches in this room, so Amoretta was required to provide her own light.

As her pale blue spell flame lit up the darkness, Amoretta was suddenly stumbling over herself to get to Grabiner.

He was sitting in one corner of the room with his back to the wall and his legs drawn up to his chest. His head was bent and his hands were clasped at the back of his skull as if he were attempting to shield himself from collapsing rubble. His hat lay discarded on the ground near his feet. He was trembling, visibly trembling, as if from fear or extreme cold. As she drew close to him, Amoretta felt the chill sweep over her own body, and she wrapped her arms around herself as she began to shiver.

Kavus was at her side as she knelt next to Grabiner.

"Hieronymous," she spoke softly and gently, so as not to startle him, closing the distance between them with one hand to lightly shake his shoulder. He did not respond. Even his robes felt cold, as if he had been sitting in a walk-in freezer.

Amoretta frowned and turned to Kavus.

"Explain," she demanded.

"He's caught in a loop of flashbacks," Kavus explained. "The chill in the air is an area effect of the fear spell laid in this room as a trap, that the master inadvertently tripped. It is called Infamy Cradle and it initiates a memory loop, causing the target to relive moments of extreme shame, horror, and revulsion."

"How long has he been caught in it?" Amoretta asked with growing distress. Now she felt the weight of every moment she had wasted while Grabiner had been trapped inside the prison of his own mind.

"Approximately twenty minutes, by your accounting," the djinni answered shortly. "The spell would have run its course and released him in about an hour's time, but I believe you would prefer to release him before that time. As he does not seem to be able to break the enchantment himself, from inside the spell, he must be dispelled."

As Amoretta brandished her wand, she demanded, "Why didn't you dispel him yourself, Kavus?"

"That is not an action that I am allowed to take without explicit instruction, and the master is indisposed, as you see," the manus said with another short bow.

Amoretta was already tracing out the runes as she let the strongest dispel she had trip over her tongue and out into the air of the small room. There was a sound like a series of raindrops impacting water, and then there was a flash as the fear spell was snuffed out. Immediately the temperature of the small room began to normalize and Grabiner lurched forward on his hands and knees, panting.

"It's all right," she cried, throwing her arms around his neck, "It's all right," she insisted, feeling the shivering spasms still running through his trembling body. "You're safe," she murmured, "I'm here with you. You don't have anything to be afraid of."

He seized her around the middle as if she were a life preserver and pressed his face against her chest with such force that they both tumbled over. Grabiner lay on his side, breathing hard, and holding onto her like he wanted to break her. He was still shaking.

"Thank god, Violet," he was saying almost incomprehensibly, since he was speaking into the front of her robe, "Thank god, you're all right."

Amoretta's stomach dropped out because it was not her name that he was calling. It was not her safety that was giving him relief, which meant that he would soon realize that the girl he was clinging to so desperately was not the person he thought she was. When he made this realization, she did not think it would come easily. She took a deep breath and got a firm grip on his shoulders.

"Hieronymous," she said gently, "I'm not Violet."

Grabiner froze suddenly as if he had been struck dead. When he spoke, his voice was very quiet.

"You're not, are you?" he asked, although it was clear he already knew the answer. He was simply waiting for her response like it was a headman's axe. It was the stroke of midnight that would break the spell.

"I'm Amoretta," she soothed him. "And you're on the twenty-fifth level of the dungeon under Iris Academy. It's the sixteenth of April and the year is two thousand and three."

Grabiner reacted as if she had touched him with a cattle prod, shoving her violently away from himself and scuttling backwards. She had expected as much and lunged after him, throwing her arms around him as if she were a cowgirl determined to bust a wild bronco at a rodeo.

"Hieronymous,  _calm down_ ," she shouted, holding onto him as tightly as she could. "You're all right.  _Everything is all right_."

All at once the manic fight went out of him and he became limp and quiet again.

"Everything is not all right," he answered with a terrible sort of emptiness. "But the past will never change to suit my fantasies."

Amoretta held onto him tightly as he covered his face with his hands again. All of his muscles tensed so hard that he trembled with suppressed movement.

"Hieronymous, I'm here with you," she reminded, leaning her full weight against his hunched over back. He grunted, acknowledging her presence. "I love you," she said. "I'll always love you. You don't have to be afraid."

The tenseness left his shoulders suddenly, and he leaned back, shifting underneath her and opening his arms. He pulled her against him, hauling her fully into his lap, like she was an oversized doll. He held her tightly, but not so tightly as before, not so tightly that it felt like he meant to break her bones. She felt him lean his cheek against the top of her head.

"I'm not worth it," he said and his voice was a whisper, a memory of long ago.

"You are," she insisted, shaking her head so it rubbed against his cheek. "You're worth more than all the stars in heaven.

"I'm a terrible man," he said quietly.

"Because you wish I was her?" she asked with a wistful, reluctant heart.

"Because  _I don't_ ," Grabiner answered simply, and then leaned bonelessly against the stone wall behind the both of them. "Perhaps I ought to. Perhaps I ought to wish you were someone else, but I don't. I never have. I am a faithless man. I don't want you to be anyone other than who you are. Even if I could, I wouldn't wish you different. Even if I could, I wouldn't trade you away into the past. If she were here now, she'd spit on me," his laugh was resigned and bitter.

Amoretta sighed. "No she wouldn't," she said, shaking her head. "She loved you. Even if she's dead, she still loves you. People's feelings don't just evaporate when they die. Those feelings hang on, like warmth in an empty room. Human beings don't live forever," she admitted with a weak smile, "But when they die, they leave behind echoes of themselves, of their hearts, and of their feelings. If she were here now, she wouldn't hate you. If she'd be doing anything at all, I'm sure she'd be  _laughing_. Not out of meanness and cruelty. She'd laugh at you because of what an idiot you're being, thinking she doesn't love you. People think you're very clever," Amoretta went on in fair imitation of this imaginary girl she'd built from her own suppositions. "But really you aren't. You can be a dolt, honestly, which is one of the reasons you're so lovable."

Grabiner moved all at once, catching her by the arms and giving her a single, hard shake. He looked pale and slightly ill.

"What made you say that?" he asked, his voice deadly quiet. "What made you say that  _she'd laugh?_ "

Amoretta blinked in confusion. "I just said what was in my head," she answered uncertainly. "I said what I thought - well, what I thought she would say."

"Yes, _but how did you know?_ " he demanded, and he sounded half-frantic.

At this, Amoretta's uncertainty bloomed into a strange and beautiful smile.

"Hieronymous, I never met this person that you love, but I don't have to have met her to have some idea of what she was like," Amoretta said, tilting her head to the side. "I can see her fingerprints all over you. I can read all about her when you show me your heart. That's what I meant when I said that love doesn't disappear just because someone has died. Her love lingers all over you. That's one of the reasons you are who you are."

He let out a weak, tired sound and let go of her arms.

"You guessed," he said flatly as he looked at her very closely. His eyes were very heavy.

Amoretta shrugged as she rolled her eyes slightly. "I suppose if it makes you feel better to think of it that way, then yes,  _I guessed._ "

Grabiner gathered her to his chest again.

"How do you know?" he asked her very quietly, leaning his cheek against the top of her head again.

"Know what?" Amoretta asked, tilting her head again.

"How do you know that she still loves me?" he asked her, and it was as if each word of the question was short and bitten off, forced with difficulty through his teeth. He was very tense again. Amoretta would never be able to fathom how much it cost him to ask her that question at that moment, although she began her counting at infinity.

But her answer was sweet and gentle, and also immediate, as if she always had such answers hidden under her tongue.

"I know she loves you just by looking at you. What a silly mess you are," she laughed fondly, "But you're a wonderful mess, the only mess of its kind. I know you don't think much of yourself, really," she said hesitatingly, but then she seemed to grow stronger, "But I think the world of you, and I know she must think the world of you too. I can read it on your heart. It's the place where you draw your courage, when you must draw it up. You're an impossible man, and I'm sure you sometimes drove her absolutely crazy with all the idiotic things you did and still do, but she never hated you. She couldn't have. She loved you, because that's all she could do with herself," Amoretta shrugged helplessly. "That's all I can do with  _myself_ ," she admitted.

"But look at me now," Grabiner said very quietly, and there was the stillness of absolute defeat in his voice.

Amoretta shook her head as she laughed a laugh of pale joy, "What do you think I've been doing all this time, Hieronymous?"

He pushed her away to hold her at arm's length again, so he could look at her face and read the truth in her eyes.

"What do you see?" he demanded.

She raised her own small hands to touch his face as she answered very simply, "You."

"And that makes you happy?" he asked with disquiet.

"It always has," she said with a wry smile.

"You are a lunatic," Grabiner said very deliberately, and Amoretta shrugged.

"The headmistress wondered once if I was the object of your insanity, but probably you're the object of mine," she said with amusement, "So get used to it."

"I'm not sure I ever will," Grabiner said with a shake of his head.

Amoretta was very thoughtful as she continued. "It isn't just guessing, you know. It's deduction. That's the power of a girl detective: deduction. I think your Violet must have been a much better person than I am, for lots and lots of reasons. And I know that I'll always love you, no matter what happens. That's how I know that she loves you now, because I love you now, and I know I'll love you every now, every when."

" _Circulus in probando,_ "he objected, _"_ You're employing circular logic," he said, and she was relieved to hear that he recovered enough to engage her in relatively normal conversation.

"Love is a circle," she agreed, tracing a line in the air between the two of them. "From me to you and then back to me. It keeps turning and rolling and turning and rolling. It's the space that stands between us, and it's the closeness when I can hear your heart beat," she leaned forward and pressed her ear against his chest. His heart rate was gradually normalizing. "Love doesn't have a beginning and an ending. Love is  _always_ , made up of infinite moments. That's why it's a circle. That's why it's perfectly fine for me to use circular reasoning. You can't begin at the beginning and end up at the end, because there isn't any beginning and there isn't any end."

"I still love her," Grabiner admitted very quietly. Then he was very still, as if startled by his own words.

"You ought to," she said and squeezed him as hard as she could. "She still loves you."

"You'd forgive your own murderer," Grabiner observed tiredly, easing her off his lap and onto the ground.

"You don't need my forgiveness for  _loving someone_ , Hieronymous," Amoretta said with some consternation. She raised one finger, slim and pale in the flickering blue flame. "Love is a renewable resource. It's basically impossible to run out of it, because the more you give away, the more you have."

"Did you read that in a greeting card, or did you learn it from a campfire girl song?" he taunted with a raised eyebrow, rubbing at his temples. They were both covered in muck from rolling around on the dungeon floor.

"I didn't have to learn it anywhere," Amoretta replied archly. "It's written across my heart."

Grabiner made an ambiguous noise in reply as he got to his feet and then leaned down to help Amoretta to hers. He looked around the room, somewhat disoriented. Kavus floated near the door, watching the two of them intently. He had been witness to their heart-wrenching episode, as he often was. Grabiner ignored him.

"You came here alone?" he asked Amoretta pointedly.

"With Kavus," Amoretta reminded him, but Grabiner shook his head.

"Which was irresponsible and dangerous. You are not equipped to handle the obstacles on this floor, no matter how well you may think of yourself," he said, and then he brushed his fingertips across his forehead. "Thank you for coming to my aid," he said quietly. "And thank you for your discretion. I would rather the headmistress live in blissful ignorance that I stumbled into one of my own spells."

Amoretta looked around herself, biting her lip. "About that," she said. "How did you manage to get caught in that spell? This isn't exactly on the main thoroughfare - "

Grabiner frowned. "I wasn't paying attention and I stepped on a teleport tile and was dumped into this room. Before I could get my bearings I fell under the effects of Infamy Cradle, which I laid only last week."

"You know," Amoretta said as she shifted slightly from foot to foot, "I don't think that spell - Infamy Cradle - is a very nice spell."

Grabiner rolled his eyes. "Of course it isn't. This is a final examination for graduating seniors, not a wonderful sunday picnic full of pixie dust and cats in boots. It's meant to be challenging. It's meant to be  _difficult_. This is a spell that tests mettle, that tests strength," he waved his hand lightly, "No, not the kind of strength you need to run a race, or wrestle an adversary to the ground. To escape this trap you must have mental fortitude. You must have courage to face the worst that you have done, that you have said, that you have  _been_." He looked away. "Which is why it is a trap that I myself cannot escape." He shook his head briefly and his psychological distress was replaced by a sense of general disgruntlement. He made a rumbling sound in the back of his throat. "Now I will have to take the time to lay the spell again because I was fool enough to blunder into it."

"Not tonight," Amoretta warned, planting her hands on her hips.

Grabiner was leaning down to retrieve his hat, which he thrashed against his leg in an attempt to shake out the dust it had gathered while on the floor.

"Not tonight," he agreed and then sighed, shaking his head. "It's been a long day," he said as he fished in one of his pockets.

He pressed a wrapped bonbon into her hands.

"Eat that," he said shortly. "I'm sure you're exhausted."

Amoretta obediently ate the bonbon and felt better for it. While she was enjoying the sharply bittersweet taste of the chocolate, Kavus picked up the passkey from where she had dropped it and gave it back into Grabiner's keeping.

"Pickpocketing," Grabiner said, turning to her and raising one finger. "Breaking curfew," he raised a second finger, "Trespassing in the dungeons," he raised a third finger. He shook his head, rolling his eyes. "If I gave you as many demerits as you deserve, you'd have been expelled twenty times by now."

"I'm not sorry," she said resolutely. "I'd do it all again right now if I had to."

The corner of Grabiner's mouth turned up a little in the flickering witchlight.

"I know you would," he said as he laid his hand on her arm. "Thank you."

* * *

Their return to the surface of Iris Academy was less eventful than Amoretta's descent, since Grabiner simply cast an  _Avoidance_ spell on the both of them before layering a  _Float_. Somehow riding the elevators back up to the surface was less upsetting in his company, or perhaps it was simply that the elevators climbed floors a lot more slowly than they  _descended_ floors.

Once they were back in the sanctity of their rooms with the door locked and warded behind them, Grabiner dismissed Kavus for the evening, tossed his hat on the bedside table, and then took off his muck-spattered cloak, throwing it over his desk chair. Then he went to his nightstand where he opened the lowest drawer and produced a formidable-looking glass bottle filled with an amber colored liquid as bright and mellow as honey. He apparently also kept glassware in this lowest drawer, because he also pulled out a glass before shutting the drawer again. He brought the bottle and the glass over to the desk, unstoppered the bottle, and poured himself a drink.

He took a long drink of the golden-tawny liquid and then threw his thumb abruptly over his shoulder.

"Go take a bath," he ordered. "You're filthy. Leave your clothes outside the bathroom door and I'll clean them while you're bathing."

Amoretta put both of her hands on her hips. "Yes, your majesty," she said, making a slight bob which might have been meant to be a curtsy.

From his unequivocal order it seemed clear that they would have no further emotional discussions of his difficult past. Although he was unclear on exactly how much she knew about his school days, that she knew anything at all made him sure that Petunia Potsdam had told her everything, and that the two of them had gossiped like schoolgirls over his tattered youth. He was not yet ready to share anything else of that part of his life with her, no matter how accepting of it she might have been.

And Amoretta was unwilling to press him. He would tell her when he was ready, and she was willing to wait.

As she began to shrug out of her robe, Grabiner seemed to think better of his earlier command and amended it, "Make sure you take your clothes off  _inside_ the bathroom," he said, "With the door closed."

"You'd think I was some sort of exhibitionist!" Amoretta complained as she crossed the room to the bathroom door.

"In my experience - " Grabiner began, glancing over his shoulder at her, but Amoretta cut him off by making a face with a wrinkled up nose while sticking her tongue out. He shrugged and she closed the bathroom door behind her.

After a few moments her bare arm appeared to drop her pajamas and robe unceremoniously on the floor in front of the door. Then Grabiner relaxed a little as he heard the familiar sound of water running.

He spent the next few minutes expunging his cloak of the accumulated slime and mildew, which ended up in a messy little pile on the floor. After his cloak was cleaned and dried and reasonably presentable, he hung it back on the wall on its accustomed hook and started on his robe. He was about halfway finished cleaning it when the door to the bathroom opened again, and he glanced idly over his shoulder to find Amoretta emerging in a towel.

Before he could say a word she had placed an open palm against the side of her face and cried, "Now who's the exhibitionist,  _Mr. Grabiner_."

Since he was in the process of cleaning his robe, which lay open and draped over the chair in front of him as his cloak had been before, he wore only breeches and boots. His undershirt was folded neatly on the desk beside his glass of bourbon, having already been cleaned. As he had begun dressing himself in the bathroom upon her unexpected arrival, he realized that this was the least clothed she had ever seen him. Still, it was hardly cause for remark. He was still quite decent, unlike the other resident of the room, who wore only a towel that she held closed in front of her breastbone with one hand.

He frowned and then gestured over his shoulder with his wand, pointing out her state of undress.

"You're in a glass house," he said shortly. "Put some clothes on."

"One would think you'd be a little more pleased to see your beloved wife wearing only a towel," she pointed out as she crossed the room to her trunk and began to rummage around for pajamas.

Grabiner grunted, but said nothing else in response, trying to keep his attention on the stained robe. Inevitably, she was impossible to ignore. She looked very fragile as she leaned forward on her toes, her skin milky and warm with a sort of luminous transparency. Her damp, dark hair was swept over one shoulder, and she had left a trail of water droplets and wet footprints from the bathroom door to her trunk. Although her hair mostly concealed it, he could see the the fingerprints of the curse burn on the pale rise of her shoulder. His hand tightened involuntarily on his wand.

He took another drink.

Eventually she selected the pajamas she required and retired to the bathroom to change. When she reappeared, fresh and tidy and bandaged, she flopped down on the ground behind him and began the slow process of squeezing out her hair. He glanced over his shoulder at her and found she was watching him intently.

He raised an eyebrow. "Don't you have anything better to do?" he demanded.

"Better than watching you stand around without your shirt on?" she asked with faint amusement. "No, not really."

"It may surprise you to discover that I have classes to teach tomorrow," he said, showing his familiar streak of sarcasm, "I can't show up to teach looking like I fell into a septic tank. I might also add that I am not a sideshow. I am not doing this for your enjoyment."

"You may not be, but I'm sure enjoying it," Amoretta pointed out easily, as she patiently squeezed the water out of her hair.

He frowned. "I am not certain why you're so interested," he said darkly. "I am hardly a remarkable specimen."

It was so. He was in reasonably good shape, since being one of the two resident professors at Iris Academy dictated that he had a surprisingly active lifestyle, but he was lightly built, and wiry. He was bony, as opposed to sculpted, a man who handled books far more often than he handled anything else. He might have posed for a pinup calendar of librarians.

"I'm interested because you're you," Amoretta pointed out, as if such a reason were patently obvious. "Besides, you're the sort of person who's always all buttoned up. It's exciting to see you  _unbuttoned_."

"That sounded quite inappropriate," he pointed out, glancing at her over his shoulder with one eye.

"I hope so," Amoretta said pleasantly. "I'm flirting with you again."

"Yes," he said, turning his attention back to the robe. "I had noticed."

"You can't blame me for  _trying_ ," she pointed out and he answered her with a vague, non-committal sound.

She fell silent after that, and he worried what she was up to, but was unwilling to turn and look at her for fear of what he would discover. Then she broke the silence with a fit of coughing and he turned to find her with his glass of bourbon in her hands and a puckered face that indicated that the cat had been in the cream. Grabiner rolled his eyes as if asking the heavens for patience.

He leaned down and removed the glass from her slightly unwilling fingers.

"I can't conceive why Miss Middleton thinks I am a bad influence on you. You are quite obviously a bad influence on  _yourself_ ," he said as he put the glass of bourbon back on the desk. "Congratulations on discovering that neat whiskey is not to your taste."

"It smelled very nice," she volunteered. "Too bad it tasted like shoe polish."

"I would challenge that remark from anyone else but you," he said dryly. "But I am willing to believe that you have actually tasted shoe polish." He shook his head lightly as he finished cleaning his robe and went to hang it in the wardrobe. "That's actually a very smooth bourbon," he said. "I have doubts you will become an alcoholic any time soon."

"I thought you liked wine," Amoretta wondered aloud.

"I do," Grabiner admitted. "But my affection for the one has very little connection to my affection for the other. I also like chocolate, books, and croquet."

"Do you really like croquet?" Amoretta asked with amusement. "Now  _that's_ English."

"I play like a Barbary pirate," he said, "Not like a gentleman. If we ever play croquet together I guarantee that I will leave you crying."

"Is that a threat or a promise?" Amoretta asked with a Cheshire smile.

"Don't press your luck," Grabiner warned with a flip of his wand, and Amoretta retreated penitently, her hands raised.

Before long she was examining the stoppered bottle. "This is from Kentucky," she pointed out.

"Am I meant to applaud you for being able to read labels?" he asked as he picked up her bathrobe and dropped it over the desk chair.

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Oughtn't you be drinking something from some Glen or other? Something aged for twelve thousand years in Scotland, or smoked over Irish peat? Aren't you a  _Baron_?" she asked with a sly grin and a leading tone of challenge.

He flipped his wand over his shoulder again to point directly at her, but he did not turn around.

"That's a courtesy title," he said blandly. "A morsel of respect offered to the first son of an old family. It doesn't belong to me and I have no interest in it. My father is really Lord Halifax the same as he is the Viscount Montague. The lesser title is offered to the son only because the elder has no need for it, like worn out socks, or a threadbare coat. I have no interest in hand-me-downs or scraps thrown from the table of that bloated plutocrat."

"You sound like you're ready to throw your wooden shoes into the machinery of government, Che," Amoretta giggled into the back of her hand. "Hearing you lecture about tradition and order no one would ever suspect that you're such a rebel. That's my special privilege.  _Vive la république_."

"You're hilarious," he commented humorlessly. "There are elements of tradition that ought to be defended, and elements of society that I have no affection for. The trick is discerning which things should be kept, and which things should be thrown down." He waved her off with his wand. "I will never be the man my father wanted me to be. I do not wish to be Lord Halifax."

"You're quite proud of that," Amoretta noted with an obvious touch of affection in her voice. She tilted her head slightly to the side. "I'm proud of you," she said with a familiar smile.

This apparently took him by surprised, because he looked over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow, and she could just see the faintest touch of pink in his cheeks.

"What for?" he demanded, his brows drawing together. He was daring her for an answer.

"Because you are the man you are," she answered readily. "You're awful and stubborn, but you know what you want. You know what you mean. You won't compromise on the things you believe in, even if that means a fight. You can be awfully inconvenient, but I think that's one of the reasons I love you. Under all your troubles, you're quite the rooster, aren't you? You're proud to be Hieronymous Grabiner, not because of who you were born to be, but because of who you made yourself into. Sometimes holding onto you feels like plunging my hands into a bucket of broken glass, but I'm proud to be your wife. It isn't really very easy, but it is good."

"Your declarations of love always sound like poor report cards," Grabiner said as he cleaned up her robe. "Does not play well with others. Indications of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Never turns in spelling homework."

"I think it's best to say what you mean," Amoretta admitted honestly, covering her heart with her hand.

"If I wrote you a poem," Grabiner said critically, "It would be about what an idiot you are."

"The force that drives the water through the rocks drives my red blood," Amoretta laughed.

"That poem isn't romantic, it's morbid," Grabiner said, giving her a look that indicated exactly what he thought of her taste in poetry.

"Almost all of the best love stories are!" she chirped with some certainty.


	15. Thirteen: Con El Aroma Que Amo - With The Smell That I Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> little wife  
> of every day,  
> again a human being,  
> humbly human,  
> proudly poor,  
> as you have to be in order to be  
> not the swift rose  
> that love's ash dissolves  
> but all of life,  
> all of life with soap and needles,  
> with the smell that I love  
> of the kitchen that perhaps we shall not have
> 
> \-- Pablo Neruda, No Sólo El Fuego / Not Only the Fire, Donald D. Walsh translation

Before breakfast the morning after their harrowing episode in the school's dungeons, Amoretta found herself approached by the freshman student council president, who looked decidedly concerned, wringing her hands as she shifted from foot to foot. It did not take the acumen of a girl detective to see that Minnie Cochran was distressed about something, but seeing as Kyo Katsura had left Iris Academy in a huff, Amoretta really had no guesses as to what the other brunette was so anxious about.

Fortunately, Minnie was entirely unwilling to keep Amoretta on pins and needles, because she blurted her problems out all at once, like a kindergartner confessing that she's spilled tempera paint all over the bathroom floor.

" _I forgot,_ " she lamented, tugging on Amoretta's sleeve with urgency, "Or rather,  _we both_  forgot. It's just that with everything that's been going on since spring break, it's like my head has been in a whirl - "

Amoretta nodded sympathetically. Since early March she had solved a mystery, had a schoolyard brawl fought over her, gotten Kyo Katsura expelled (more or less), had her marriage revealed to the world, been assaulted by a close friend, become soulmates with a man who seemed only partially accepting of the situation, moved into her professor's quarters permanently, won the national lottery, and been down to a floor of the school's dungeon that included electrified floors and pit traps.

"I suppose we have been busy," she noted mildly, then shrugged. "So what is it we've forgotten, Minnie?"

"The second spring fundraiser," Minnie answered, biting the tip of her thumb thoughtfully. "We had the Valentine's fundraiser, but that money is allotted for other expenses: it's money that helps pay the spring tithe, and run the school. The second spring fundraiser is to contribute funds for the May Day dance, and we haven't done a single thing and the dance is only a couple of weeks away. We're due to turn in our contribution next monday so the juniors have time to buy everything they need for the dance. We're really in a pickle, this time."

Amoretta laid her finger against her lips thoughtfully. "Normally we're encouraged to raise money from sources outside the school, like parents, and people from the village, but there really isn't time for that now, is there? We've got to do something this week, which means it's got to be from the students."

Minnie offered both her palms up in distress. "But what are we going to do? We don't really have time to plan much of anything. I suppose we could take up a collection like paupers - "

Amoretta shook her head with some decision, "We won't," she said, "No matter how fine a dance we want to have. We've got to have some kind of fundraiser, otherwise it'll be dereliction of duty. Just because we've been busy is no reason to shirk our responsibilities. Anybody could take up a collection. We're supposed to  _do_ things." Amoretta could get easily fired up about 'the principle of the thing,' even on issues where very few concerned would have actually cared one way or another. A small smile crept up around the corner of her mouth, "Didn't you run in the autumn on the promise of giving everyone a helping hand?"

"I did!" agreed Minnie with renewed determination, balling up her hands into fists. "But what can we do in less than a week?"

Amoretta gave her a snappy thumbs up. "We'll think of something," she said. "We're the Brownies, after all. If we can't get things done in time, then no one can."

The afternoon that Petunia Potsdam had announced that the freshman student council would consist of the two sprightly brunette candidates, Amoretta had jokingly dubbed them 'the Brownies.' The name fit well enough, because besides being brunettes with thick manes of hair, Amoretta was as small and delicate as a pixie, while Minnie was tall and willowy, like a dryad, and they were both possessed with a strong sense of community spirit which made them likely to play elves for the shoemaker or mice for the tailor of Gloucestershire. If this were a different sort of story, they might have been the type of sanctimonious busy-body goody-goodies that naughtier people wish to see roasted over a fire by trolls. But both were rather more pleasant and friendly than they were dreadful and tedious, and as has been previously intimated, Amoretta followed the  _letter_  of the law only when it suited her and so broadly interpreted the  _spirit_  of the law that a career criminal might have been impressed by her ingenuity. Minnie also dutifully bent the rules when she thought the rules would do more harm than good. In the end, the freshman student council was like a combination pep squad, detective agency, and social services bureau.

As she was reflecting on their many Brownie-like qualities, Amoretta clapped her hands in sudden inspiration.

"That's it, brownies!" she cried out.

The president's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "What about Brownies?" she asked, folding her arms underneath her indigo cape.

Amoretta shook her head, laughing. "Not Brownies," she corrected, "Brownies! Let's have a bake sale! We've got just enough time to have one this weekend if we hustle. It's the perfect way to turn our reserves into a fortune. We can buy the ingredients with some of the money we have left in the coffers, and I'm sure the headmistress and cook will let us use the kitchens if we promise to clean up after ourselves. If we get on this today then we can bake tomorrow evening, after dinner has been served. Then we can have a sale on Saturday. I know it's short notice, but if we spread the word and sell in the quad, then I'm sure we'll get enough customers. And that way we'll be on time to turn in the class's contribution to the dance on Monday!"

Minnie was swept away by Amoretta's enthusiasm, but she couldn't help but be a little doubtful. "Have you ever baked before?" she asked. "I mean, in a magical kitchen."

"A kitchen is a kitchen," Amoretta assured her with infectious confidence. "Besides, baking isn't all that hard, so long as you follow a book. You're good at black magic, aren't you?" Amoretta asked. "Baking is just like that. You just follow what it says in the recipe."

"Someone will have to go for ingredients tonight," Minnie pointed out. "Which means we'll have to decide what we're making and make a list, and then hope that - "

"Oh, he'll do it," Amoretta assured her with a fluttering hand.

Minnie reflected that it was to their advantage that the proctor for the fundraising events just happened to be the freshman treasurer's husband.

"But that means we have to get a move on," Amoretta piped up, raising one finger and pointing toward the cafeteria doors. "Go and snag a couple of croissants for us, and I'll run to the library for some cookbooks. I've got green magic today, but we're just teaching our plants things, so I think I'll have time to make some lists out by the time school closes. Meet me in front of the library and we'll talk about it there while we eat. Oh, and tell Hieronymous that I'm very sorry but I won't be able to have breakfast with him today. Work to do," she sang out like a lark and then blew a kiss to the freshman president as she turned on her heel to rush down the hall to the library. "Thanks, Minnie," she called over her shoulder. "You're a doll!"

Minnie waved at Amoretta as she went and then made off in the other direction, towards the cafeteria. They had a plan and the will to succeed, along with the sort of peppy manic energy required to accomplish whatever goals they invented for themselves. They were captains of industry, the sort of creatures able to create something out of almost nothing, like spinning straw into gold.

When the freshman student council of Iris Academy got together on something, they were a  _force to be reckoned with_.

* * *

Amoretta and Minnie met up in front of the library, and they pored over cookbooks together, picking out recipes that they thought would be easy enough for novices to make, and yet still would prove popular with the ravenous students who were facing down their final exams. After Amoretta had made a short list of a few kinds of cookies, sweets, and brownies, they agreed that they would have to hire a little additional muscle if they were going to get all of their treats made in one evening. Amoretta flew off to request help from Ellen and Virginia, and Minnie left to ask permission of the headmistress and the cook, guaranteeing that she would provide some special assistance of her own.

Ellen agreed to help with the preparations immediately, since she had never had the chance to examine a magical kitchen before, and was interested in observing how it worked.

"After all," she said, "Baking is really just chemistry, so making things for a bake sale is like a simple, practical chemistry experiment."

Virginia, who was much more interested in eating cookies than making them, agreed to help only when she was bribed with the promise of some of their finished bounty, free of charge.

With help secured, Amoretta bustled off to Green Magic class with a pile of cookbooks in her arms. By the time she got there she was quite exhausted, as all the running around had more than tired her out. She was happy that the rest of her school day mainly consisted of her teaching her small plant how to sing "The Farmer in the Dell."

She sat at a lone desk in the back of the classroom, making out lists of ingredients. It was more complicated than simply writing a grocery list like one she might have made for her home in New Hampshire because she had to figure out how much of everything they would need in bulk, because she and Minnie meant to make a lot of cookies. That meant tallying up totals and even making measurement conversions when necessary, so she scratched out a lot of numbers in the margins of her notebook. At Iris Academy she didn't have access to a pocket calculator, although there was an ancient mechanical adding machine in the accounting room. She couldn't exactly sneak out of class to use it, and she was sure it weighed at least sixty pounds, so she had not attempted to borrow it.

 _Maybe I ought to buy an abacus,_  she thought to herself with amusement.  _I bet they have one at Marvy. They have sextants and astrolabes, so they ought to have something as low tech as an abacus. Wouldn't I look cute dragging something like that around. Then I'd be a real beancounter._

While Amoretta was busy being impressed by her own cleverness, her geranium had begun singing about how the farmer ate the dell.

"How creative, my darling dewdrop!" Petunia Potsdam commended with mild amusement. "I had no idea you were going to regale us with such a gruesome song about a farmer devouring everyone in the countryside. That's very novel!"

The headmistress had come up behind Amoretta, who was buried in piles of cookbooks and her notes.

Amoretta flushed at being caught at something other than her schoolwork, because certainly the bake sale could not go forward without the headmistress's goodwill, and hastened to close the cookbook that lay open over her class notes. In her hurry to appear studious, she knocked the entire stack of precariously balanced cookbooks off her desk and the headmistress had to dance backwards, lifting her skirts as the books crashed to the floor.

As the books had gone tumbling, Amoretta had lunged forward to pull her geranium protectively to her chest. It survived the calamity with no injuries, so Amoretta let out a great sigh of relief before turning with embarassment to the headmistress to ask for forgiveness.

"Oh, it's all right my tipsy tulip," Petunia Potsdam assured her. "After all, a girl of your age has very many important things to consider besides her schoolwork. You are quite a good enough student as it is so long as you don't make a habit of attempting to break my toes with purloined library books."

"Yes ma'am," Amoretta chorused obediently, and resolved to keep at least one eye on her studies, even if she did still have the shopping list to finish.

Satisfied with Amoretta's progress, the headmistress moved on to assist Manuel Arias, who had chosen the unenviable task of getting his cactus to sing a very romantic love song. The cactus was not being entirely cooperative.

After she left, Amoretta continued to work on her list, all the while absently singing verses of the Farmer in the Dell to her small red geranium, Vivian. Vivian could generally carry the tune, but still had to be prompted to continue singing at the beginning of each verse, and sometimes became confused as to the order of the verses, having the farmer take a cheese before he took a wife. Vivian's voice was light and sweet, like the wind through a reed, a thoroughly ordinary singing voice for a geranium, Petunia Potsdam had informed her.

When Amoretta had asked if it were common for plants to be taught to sing, Petunia Potsdam had told her that generally the only flowers who were taught to sing were those that were planted in magical gardens.

"After all," she had chortled, "Just think what a turn a regular person would have if they stumbled into a patch of singing daffodils."

Fortunately, flowers generally had very short memories for remembering songs, and so forgot them within a few days if they were not continually coaxed with a vegetal memory charm and nearly endless repetitions of music and lyrics, so it was very unlikely that one might encounter a rosebush singing arias unless one were wandering around a magical property. But teaching the flowerbeds to sing was quite time-consuming, which is why the flowerbeds of Iris Academy were generally respectfully silent (with a few notable and often hilarious exceptions).

Amoretta privately thought the general reticence of the academy's flower beds also might have something to do with the fact that Grabiner, one of the two resident professors at Iris Academy - an individual who disavowed 'fun' as being worrisome - disliked noise and confusion. When all the flowers in the green magic classroom all began to sing at once it was a cacophony that would have put a rowdy kindergarten to shame.

"The thing about flowers," Petunia Potsdam had said with a sly grin, "Is not that they can't sing, but rather that they don't really feel like bothering most of the time, and even when they do, they never can decide what it is that they ought to sing. It's human beings that like to hear flowers sing, not flowers."

But it was a good practical exercise, she had said, caring for a plant of their very own: raising it from a seed or a sprout, nurturing it, and then building a good enough relationship with it that they could teach it something simple, like singing, or reciting poetry. They were forbidden from teaching daffodils any Wordsworth, however.

"One gets quite tired of hearing the same things over and over again, after all," Potsdam had told them, throwing her hands in the air.

So Amoretta made out her shopping lists, keeping a careful account of how many pounds of butter, sugar, and flour they were likely to need, while at the same time trying to remind Vivian that the cow took the pig, and not the other way around. In the end she got so muddled up that she had Vivian singing that the pig took a wife, which made everything on the farm in the dell seem very Orwellian, but at last the list was done and checked, and before the end of the day, so that as classes finished, she could deliver the list to the shopper, who somewhat begrudgingly went to the grocery store.

* * *

At a time when final examinations were so quickly approaching, and he had, at the very least, to lay the spell Infamy Cradle again on the twenty-fifth floor of the dungeon before the seniors could begin taking their tests, Hieronymous Grabiner would not have said that a Thursday evening was an ideal time to go on a grocery expedition to provide supplies for one of his wife's ill-advised student welfare campaigns.

And yet, he had done it.

He had taken her carefully ordered list, which divided up the dairy and eggs from the dry goods like flour and sugar, and deferentially requested his discretion in choosing an appropriate baking chocolate (within their budget), and had driven to the closest reasonably sized supermarket, which necessitated a drive of perhaps forty minutes. Then he had spent some time comparing prices and pinching pennies, because what had remained in the freshman class's coffers for the purchase of provisions was not substantial. In the end, he had filled a cart up with bags of flour, small tins of baking powder, dozens of eggs, and enough butter for a Rotary Club pancake breakfast (although perhaps not quite enough for the academy's Pancake Supper, given how much the younger students slathered up their hotcakes. Privately Grabiner thought that although the supper was meant to open the courting season, the students required no assistance on that count, and mainly used the Pancake Supper as an excuse to eat to gluttonous excess).

At the checkout counter, a little old lady with the odd, symmetrical curls of a permanent wave gave him a smile as she rang up his purchases.

"Planning on doing quite a bit of baking, I see," she observed. "It's always nice to see food made at home instead of bought in boxes and packages, isn't it? Is it you or the wife who's the cook in your house?"

Grabiner, who had been intent on watching the prices as they rang up on the small black screen that was turned in his direction, answered absently.

"My wife," he said, but then even as he said it he frowned as he reflected that he really had no experience one way or another. "Or rather," he corrected himself. "It seems as if she'd  _like_ to be good at cooking. I cannot say whether or not her wishes will turn into an unqualified success. I suppose time will tell."

"Two cooks are one too many to have in a house, is what I always say. They get underneath one another's feet and then quarrel about who scratched up all the teflon pans," she said cheerfully and knowingly. "Just married, then?" asked the cashier, who was uncommonly chatty, as most ladies past a certain age are.

"In January," Grabiner answered shortly. He was not in the habit of sharing his personal affairs with cashiers, but a moment of distraction had now put him in a position where he was required to converse to be civil. At least she was now nearing the end of the meticulously organized groceries on the conveyor belt.

"How nice for you!" the old lady said as she rang up several pounds of butter quarters, as if his fledgling marriage could be nothing else, and had not so far been filled with assault, scandal, and a rival claimant on his wife's hand. "Well, you just take a bit of sage advice from me, won't you? So long as your wife keeps trying, something is bound to come from all that effort, even if that means you have to eat cookies filled with egg shells for a while. Making food for someone is sharing your love with them, and don't you scoff young man," she warned, suddenly quite stern for a little old lady in a cashier's apron, "It's true. So just remember that every time you have to eat a fallen cake or some accidentally unleavened bread. Even those mistakes are born in love. Just think how you'd feel if you gave her some tragic cake you'd made. You'd want her to love it, wouldn't you, even if you knew very well how sorry it was. When we're learning, not everything we try is always successful, but it certainly always teaches us  _something_. Mostly what it teaches is how little we know, how silly and ignorant we are, and just how much we have to learn."

The cashier would not let him be off with his bags of groceries until he had given her some indication that he had at least  _understood_ what she had said. Then she saw him off with a smile, and a request that he come again soon. As he loaded the groceries into the van, he grumbled to himself like a disgruntled dog. He had driven out of his way to a reasonably sized supermarket that was part of a chain of grocery stores just to escape the chance that he might have to make small talk (and also because there was no way the freshman budget would have survived a trip to the village grocery for supplies). In the end, he had been forced to talk about his personal life and received unsolicited advice from an old woman.

It was like every day of his life at a school run by Petunia Potsdam.

As he drove back to Iris Academy, taking the winding, switchback mountain roads slowly in the darkness, he put his frustration at being lectured out of his mind. If Amoretta turned out batches of cookies filled with eggshells, he could only hope that the student body was as understanding as the cashier had expected him to be.

Back at Iris Academy, he parked the van in the outermost protection circle and then began the trek back to the campus loaded down by groceries. He could not go straight up to his rooms, despite the fact that it was now nearly eight thirty, because the eggs and butter had to be put away on ice. He had just finished stowing the dairy goods away in the cafeteria's cold box when he was disturbed by the appearance of a familiar blue form at his left hand side.

"You're needed," Kavus advised. "I am afraid the mistress has been involved in an  _incident_."

Grabiner had the presence of mind to pull the door to the cold room closed behind him before he was out of the kitchens in a dead run, questioning Kavus as he went.

"Where is she?"

In quarters.

"What has happened?"

She has fallen asleep.

As he climbed the stairs two at a time he reflected that it was ultimately surprising that this sort of dangerous situation had not happened sooner. Although he and Amoretta tried very much to keep in sync with one another, they were not the same person, and they were not on exactly the same schedule. Amoretta needed more sleep than he did, being that she was still growing, and because she was an invalid recovering from a serious assault. She had been up late the night before waiting for him to finish his work in the dungeons, and then she had been busy all day worrying about something as idiotic as the May Day dance and some silly bake sale she was organizing.

Considering how she had been running about all day like a fussy red hen, it was no surprise that she had exhausted herself. Because of their schedules, she had had no chance to rest or nap at all during the school day, and then she had sent him off on an errand as soon as the day was over.

She needed more rest that she was giving herself. She was determined to keep doing things exactly the way she had been doing them before she had been assaulted and marked, but she wouldn't be able to survive if she kept running herself into the ground. It wasn't as if she would simply keel over dead, but working herself hard when her body had been drained so thoroughly of magic could very well lead to a collapse that left her bedridden instead of simply weak and easily tired. He was going to have to put his foot down. She needed more rest. She would have to rest, but how could she when she was always being called upon to sort out one mess or another for one of her friends?

She was a busybody, and that, by design, meant she was  _busy_.

And he had to admit to himself that at least some of the time, the reason she didn't get enough rest was because of  _him_. He gave plenty of extra lessons and he worked her hard, but he worked himself much harder, she  _could not_  sleep until he was there to hold her hand, or night haunts would come snuffling after the burn on her shoulder. If he wanted her to be able to rest more frequently, then he was going to have to stop skipping lunches and working such long hours.

He thought through all of this in the time it took him to climb the stairs from the basement kitchens up to the second floor and reach the door to his quarters.

When he wrenched the door open, he was relieved to find her already awake, but sobbing, lying on her side on the floor, the desk chair overturned beside her.

He did not need Kavus's narration to piece together the chain of events that had led to this trial. She had been sitting in the desk chair, working at her homework, or perhaps simply trying to stay awake, and she had nodded off. A night haunt had found her, and her struggles during her nightmares had overturned the chair, dumping her onto the hard floor and presumably jarring her awake.

She was likely crying now from a combination of terror and physical hurt. He pulled the door closed behind him and moved to help her sit up. Her shoulder was bloody. The dream had perhaps opened the wound again, and then when the chair had tipped over she had fallen hard on her marked shoulder. It was clear to him that at least some of her tears were from pain, so he moved his hand to hover over her shoulder and began the first of his green spells to care for the wound and to dull the pain.

Amoretta seemed unwilling to speak at first, preferring to hang on his shoulder as her tears slowed and eventually stopped. She leaned against him for support and he finished the last of the green spells that would make the bleeding mark more bearable.

They sat together, leaning against the wooden bulk of the desk, his arm around her shoulders, and they were both very quiet. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the manus, as he was in no mood to have an audience this evening. The djinni departed with a half-bow.

At last, Amoretta said, "I'm awfully sorry I caused so much trouble again, Hieronymous. I really didn't mean to. I kept trying and trying to stay awake, and I don't even remember falling asleep, but then I was in this very small place, like a canyon, but when I looked up, I couldn't even see the sky because the walls around me were so tall that they seemed to meet overhead, and the walls were made of doors, hundreds of different kinds of doors, more doors than I had ever seen in my entire life, and there weren't any windows,  _only doors_. I could hear music - I guess it wasn't really music, but some kind of thumping, but I know I  _thought_ it was music at the time. It's funny how you know things like that in dreams even if it doesn't make any sense when you think about it. The music was like slow thumping and rattling, except there didn't seem to be any pattern to it at all, and it felt like the music was squeezing around my throat like fingers, or pressing down hard on my chest and I felt  _sick_. But then I somehow knew the doors were going to start opening, all those doors that climbed higher than the sky, and I was terrified.  _I was terrified that the doors were going to open_. I screamed, but I couldn't make any sound come from my throat. It was like my breath was stolen every time I tried to shout. I couldn't make any noise, no matter how hard I tried, and I shouted and I shouted until I thought my heart would burst, but I knew I couldn't do anything to stop it - what was coming - and I knew was going to be devoured. Then there was a noise like a gunshot and it felt like the world had been turned on its side. That's when I woke up crying on the floor."

"It's all right," he said with a sigh, "You shouldn't apologize. Ultimately this is my fault. I didn't make any time for you to rest today. You didn't seem very keen on resting, but I could have pressed the point, and I did not, as I was also busy. I told you before that you were my primary concern, and it isn't right that I not make you so, when it is possible." He frowned. "I've been thinking that finishing out the school year might be too stressful for you, considering the current state of your health. I can ask that the headmistress clear your schedule for the rest of the year so that you can rest and recuperate. You're in good standing as far as your merits are concerned, and in my opinion you have already met the requirements to be passed up to sophomore in the autumn."

"Oh no," Amoretta cried, pulling on his cloak and shaking his shoulder for emphasis. She was in the habit of disheveling his clothes when she was properly riled up. "Oh please don't do that. I only have a few days left of school this year anyway, and Vivian can't be trusted to sing 'The Farmer in the Dell' without some sort of social commentary on marriage equality for pigs and cows, and I've been trying very hard at  _everything_. I'd really hate to quit now, when I'm so close to finishing. I  _like_ going to classes and learning things, even if you won't let me take any more blue magic classes this year. I like sitting in class with my friends and being a regular student. I know I made myself overly tired today from all that running around, but I promise to do better, and that I'll rest lots and lots during the summer, as much as you want, so much that you'll complain because you think I'm so lazy, but please, please,  _please_ don't ask that the headmistress clear my schedule. It's only this week and the next and then the dance, and then school's over for the year!"

Grabiner sighed again, feeling very put upon. She was begging very earnestly, and she did have several good points. The end of the school year was so close that it seemed almost silly for her not to finish out with her friends, even given the questionable state of her health. And he understood that it was important for her to feel like "a regular student" despite the fact that she had gone and had her soul torn open and married one of her teachers, which was quite unlike the school experience of most "regular students."

"Very well," he said tiredly, "But I've got my eye on you. You have got to rest more often, or this deal is off, and I will request that the headmistress clear your schedule immediately." His eyes flicked down to her bloody shoulder. Her robe and pajamas were stained with her own blood. They would have to be cleaned again. "Come along now and have a quick bath to clean yourself up and then I'll put you into bed. I did have some more work to do this evening down in the dungeons, but it will have to wait until tomorrow."

Amoretta nodded and they both stood, Grabiner helping her to her feet. At the door to the bathroom, Amoretta paused, biting her lip.

"I'm going to leave the door open," she said, "Just a little." She mimed a small space by raising both her hands in front of her. "Would you sit by the door and talk to me while I bathe? I'm just - " she gave him an awkward smile. "I'm still a little shaken up, is all. I keep thinking of all those doors. I know I'm safe here but - "

He raised both his hands before himself and shook his head to ward off her anxiety. "I'll sit by the door," he said.

She smiled then, a shy smile that was a little sheepish. It was the smile of a girl who knows she is too old to be afraid of the dark, but still is anyway. Then she disappeared into the bathroom and he heard the water being run into the clawfoot tub.

He picked up the overturned desk chair and carried it across the room to deposit it in front of the bathroom door, where he sat and waited for her to finish running the water. He pulled a book off the nearby shelf. It turned out to be Solzhenitsyn. He sat there with his hands folded over the unopened book and his eyes drifted to the plain face of the door. He was not in a mood to read even a few pages of Solzhenitsyn. The day had been difficult enough already, but it was still calming to have a book in his hands.

It was queer how the few minutes required to run the tub full of water seemed endless when one was staring blankly at the simple wooden door. He turned the book over in his hands once. Tomorrow he had Infamy Cradle to lay, and then he had to check all the other traps on the senior levels of the dungeon to make sure they were functioning properly and within appropriate safety margins. The seniors began their examination period at the beginning of the following week and were tested over several days, in a variety of dungeon environments, as their final examination was meant to be comprehensive. While the seniors were being tested, he had to make sure that the less arduous examinations for the sophomores and the juniors were in working order. Generally the headmistress left the arrangement of the dungeon examinations up to him, excepting when she became personally interested in particular students, or when she got the urge to set up favorite traps and puzzles. She insisted that she allowed him to arrange the dungeons because 'it kept him busy and out of trouble,' but he personally suspected the reason she left him to arrange things was because that meant she had more time to take luxurious baths in her Versailles tub and nose around in the business of her students: in other words, she made him do it because she did not want to. Doing practical work in the dungeon was generally much more tedious than it was interesting.

He realized with a start that the water had stopped running, and as his ears adjusted, he could hear the sound of the water lapping against the side of the tub as she went about the business of washing herself. As he leaned forward, putting his weight on his knees and folding his arms over Solzhenitsyn, he could not help but wonder when it was that everything had become so strange.

He could not really qualify it. If he had a string of beads on an abacus, he could not simply count them over, brushing them apart to create a clear space that represented 'the time that had come before' and 'the way things are now.' It wasn't a matter of counting days or weeks or months. He could not check his calendar to find out when things had ceased being that way and had become this way instead. (He certainly could not check Amoretta's school planner for such information, because he knew for a fact that it was pristinely blank after the first week's comments. She had, she had confessed, become too busy after that to write anything down in it. This fact was not really particularly surprising to him. She was the sort of girl who notes down her schedule very diligently for one week, and then loses interest entirely once the novelty has worn off.)

The truth was, he could not really say what 'that way' had been, at this point, except to contrast it to 'the way things are now.' The year that had begun in January had been full of changes, none of which had either come or gone smoothly, preferring instead to come 'higgledy-piggledy' as Amoretta might have said. It had been a mad rollercoaster ride - no, it certainly had been madder than that, since rollercoasters generally travelled along set tracks in clean, well-lit amusement parks. Life with Amoretta was more like being thrown into a cart with little in the way of steering and no brakes and then pushed off into an abandoned mine.

By now, he had accepted all the trouble and chaos she brought to his life. It had now become normal, something he expected, something he accounted for in his day. What he had learned since January was that like an Agatha Christie novel, when it came to Amoretta, what he least expected was probably most likely to happen next, and so his way of anticipating coming calamities had become completely inverted. Now he expected the unexpected. It was no longer particularly surprising.

She had won the national lottery after all.

That meant - well - it possibly meant a great deal. If he was truly ready to accept the absurd,  _then it meant a great deal._ He wasn't certain yet, was not sure he was ready to  _entertain the notion_.

It was something like deciding to believe in Santa Claus at the tired old age of thirty-two.

Suddenly the sound of her splashing increased. He tried not to imagine her turning around in the tub and folding her arms one over the other on the rim, leaning her chin on them.

"What do you suppose reincarnation is like?" she asked thoughtfully.

Grabiner frowned. "I don't mean to find out any time soon," he said shortly.

There was the exasperated sound of her blowing air out between her lips. "Well, I hope we don't either. I'm not keen on pushing up daisies just yet," she said. "I haven't even graduated from high school," she reminded. "I still have lots and lots of things I plan to do before I check out of this life. I just wonder what it's like, is all. I wonder what it's like to be yourself and somebody else at the same time."

It was his turn to make an exasperated noise. "You're never 'somebody else.' You're yourself. I could go into detail about the electromagnetic patterns imprinted on the soul by the living brain, but suffice to say that the current research indicates that reincarnated beings generally have very cogent and unified senses of self. You will simply be you. Your circumstances may change, but circumstances aren't the beginning and end of a person, they're simply the dressings that conceal our truly naked natures."

There was the sound of further splashing, as if she were flopping about in the water while digesting his answer.

"Well, that was certainly a thought-provoking response," she said at last. "I suppose I've never really thought of a soul as a kind of record."

"In many circumstances, it is easiest to understand a soul as a sort of data entity. The soul is postulated to have several discrete areas of focus, interlocked together and yet constantly shifting through and over one another. It's something like a liquid and something like a web, but it's really not much like either, honestly. It is a record of who you are at this particular moment, and in that sense your soul has already become different from the way it was when I first began speaking. A soul is change and motion. It isn't static. If you tried to record it in numbers, they would never stop moving, which is why souls are so difficult to measure. Still snapshots of a soul's activity are practically meaningless for all but very rudimentary experiments, so some researchers take lines of activity, like seismographs, although I don't really know that much about it, being as it is not my field of expertise," Grabiner remarked with a shrug, leaning back in his chair and stretching his legs out. Talking about complex magical theory was much less troubling than thinking about his relationship the girl who had been his student, become his wife, and was now his soulmate. "Of course, the soul is more than simply a confusing mess of contradictory data. The soul is obviously one of the body's indispensable organs. Its role as a barrier defining the individual as separate from the multitude is what leads to it being called 'the other skin.'"

"But what about us then?" Amoretta asked philosophically. "We've now got one soul between us. You said it that night: one soul in two bodies. If the soul is like a skin that keeps 'you' separate from 'me' regularly, how is it that we haven't become some sort of weird amalgam person, partly you and partly me?"

"Because we're individuals with strong senses of self. We have what is called a composite soul," he answered frankly. "Think of it this way: when two liquids of distinct densities are poured together into a glass, they eventually separate out, no matter how muddled together they are. In this case, our soul(s) are both the glass, and the liquid inside of it. Other people each have a separate glass filled with the stuff of their self. We have one glass half filled with you, and half filled with me. We're two separate people sharing the same container."

"That sounds pretty thrilling," Amoretta remarked. "Like we've been buried in the same coffin."

"Don't be melodramatic," Grabiner frowned. "In any case, our situation is certainly the rare exception, not the rule. Souls generally exist as a boundary between one person and another."

"And a being will die without a soul just as easily as they would die without their heart or kidneys," Amoretta recited obediently, then splashed about a little more. "That's what P. P. told us in white magic class at the beginning of the year," she explained. "She also told us that witches don't really understand souls, not the way they understand a lot of things, not the way they'd like to. She said lots of witches and wizards devote their lives to studying the soul, and that lots of little things have been discovered, and lots of old theories disproved, but nobody really understands how it works. People can see  _what_ happens, or at least  _some_ of the things that happen, they just don't know  _why_. I guess it sounds a lot like quantum mechanics, or dark matter or something."

"Spoken like a girl who gets her science from television," he said dryly, and he heard her kick up a fuss in the water as a response.

"I'm not the person who teaches at a high school without one single science class!" Amoretta retorted.

"No," Grabiner responded evenly, "But you did elect to come here knowing full well you would not be taught science. You had an introductory packet with a full description of Iris Academy's curriculum. It is true that I did not design this school's catalogue of classes - the headmistress is solely responsible for those decisions, however, on this point I must agree with her. Given the state of the world, it would be very dangerous to teach reckless high school students even basic science at the same time as teaching them magic. That is why all technological devices are forbidden on this campus, and not simply because there is no electricity to be had. It would be too tempting otherwise. We'd soon have a whole school full of heretics, and then we'd have an empty school, because the Magistrates would see to keeping the law." He let his fingers tap smartly across the cover of Solzhenitsyn. "Let the students of Iris Academy pursue their own educations in science only  _after_ they have graduated, and hopefully have gained at least a little forbearance and wisdom." He laughed dryly, "One  _hopes_."

"Why is it forbidden anyway?" Amoretta asked glumly, and he could hear the sound of slow splashing, as if she were kicking her feet meditatively.

"The short answer?" Grabiner asked with a frown. "Because it is a taboo."

She wasn't very happy with that answer. "That wasn't very helpful, Hieronymous," she complained. "You can't simply say 'it's forbidden because it's forbidden.' That doesn't make any sense. That's like saying 'you can't wear white after labor day because I said so.'"

He snorted, "That, my dear, is the essential meaning of the word 'taboo.' There are some reasons, quite a number in fact: research can be very dangerous, the velvet curtain must be maintained, witches and mundanes are generally discouraged from close interactions, there were some disastrous incidents in the past - but ultimately, none of those reasons really matter at all. The simple fact is that it is a taboo." He paused and his voice grew very hard. "It is not a taboo to be broken, Amoretta. It doesn't matter what you or I or anyone else thinks about it. To break it is to be discovered, and to be discovered means a fate worse than death. Tell me that you understand this."

A cold sweat had broken out over his body because he had suddenly had a rapid series of generally incoherent visions that ended horrifically for the girl in the bathtub. The last thing he wanted was for the Magistrates to take interest in her for any reason, let alone one of the five abominations.

When Amoretta's answer came it was reassuring in its simplicity. "Hieronymous, I don't really think there's much to worry about on that front. I know as much about science as you could learn in a children's museum in an afternoon. I can name all the planets and describe their general orbits, and I once made a clock powered by a potato, but I'm not really what you would call 'technically proficient.' Oh, I know a lot about plants and animals and biomes and things, but based on what I've read, knowing those sorts of things seems to be perfectly all right. It's just knowing how carburetors work where things begin to get sticky, isn't it?" The question seemed to be rhetorical, as she went on without waiting for a response. "Besides, it's not me you should be worrying about. It's not me that  _I'm_ worrying about." She paused meaningfully.

Grabiner took a deep breath and steepled his fingers under his chin.

"Are you indicating that you believe that Miss Middleton may be - "

"I'm not indicating  _anything_ , Hieronymous," Amoretta interrupted him, "But you said it yourself that day we went for a picnic. Ellen gets obsessive over collecting and arranging facts. She likes to understand  _how_ things work and  _why_ they work that way. She's also very good at figuring things out. You ought to know that well enough, considering that  _disagreement_ you had with her when she passed an examination without casting a single spell."

"She did not pass that examination," Grabiner interrupted crossly. "She merely completed it. Examinations at this academy do not exist to satisfy student vanity. I am sorry that Miss Middleton was so juvenile as to become angered that her purely logical solution to the test did not qualify her for merits, but it was an explicitly  _magical_ examination - "

" _Hieronymous_ ," came Amoretta's exasperated interjection. "We've already had this conversation. Three times, I think. It seems like every time it ends with you saying 'Dispensation of merits is at my discretion, and that is final.'" She sighed. "I'm just saying that Ellen is all on her own now. She doesn't have any family any more, and besides that, she can be really awfully stubborn and pig-headed about things if she thinks she's right about something. She won't accept some sort of weak 'taboo' answer, not unless you explain it so she doesn't feel like she's fighting the good fight against some corrupt, old-fashioned society. She's a Horse, remember? She sticks to her guns, particularly if she thinks she's got a cause."

Grabiner looked up at the polished boards of the ceiling. "I will speak to Miss Middleton," he said at last, "For as long as is necessary for her to be satisfied that certain lines of research are  _forbidden_ , and I will do my best to intimate  _why_ they are forbidden."

Yet another thing to do. Ever since the moment he had first let Amoretta into his life, things had begun to change: now his empty world was filling up with people. Caring for others was sometimes very bothersome. But she was right. He had no desire to see anything unfortunate happen to Ellen Middleton. She was Amoretta's friend, the only one he felt was competent enough to be trusted.

It was Grabiner's turn to sigh.

"Are you finished bathing?" he asked.

She was.

* * *

Amoretta studied dutifully during the next day's green magic class, as a sort of apology to Vivian for neglecting her the day previous. She sat with her desk pushed up against Minnie Cochran's, and watched with some admiration as the girl's pretty pink sweetheart rosebush sang the Tallis Canon in harmonic rounds so well and so beautifully that Amoretta devoted herself to Vivian's education with new resolve.

Minnie's efforts were quite splendid, and Amoretta half wished that she had spent more time studying green magic earlier in the year, but then, one couldn't make time for  _everything_.

Except Minnie somehow seemed to. Like Ellen she expected to be passed to Sophomore year in all colors. Amoretta could only hope to qualify in blue and white. What could be learned in one month of devoted study was not enough to qualify for Freshman mastery of green, as was clear from the fact that Vivian was more of a starling than a starlet.

Of course, Amoretta had had dozens of lessons off the books: formal lessons in dueling and grammar from Grabiner, and then lots of informal lessons that seemed to come at the strangest moments, like when she was mulling around in a tub of steaming bathwater and turning her thoughts over and over. Additionally, the colorful headmistress never seemed to tire of showering Amoretta with her own unique insights into the world, so all in all, she felt she was receiving a very full education, even if it could not all be easily noted down on a final report card.

And besides, unlike most everyone else, she would be spending the summer holiday at Iris Academy. She had no illusions that she and Grabiner would be visiting the seaside or going to amusement parks during the break. She imagined they would spend each day much as they did during the school year, although during the summer he could count on her being his only pupil. Well, perhaps she and Ellen, if he felt charitable.

Still, despite the fact that she was guaranteed to have a summer full of scholarship, that was no reason to coast along now. She knew she couldn't count on Petunia Potsdam giving her any consistent lessons during the summer, since Grabiner had already intimated that during the summer the headmistress often departed the campus at a moment's notice to investigate matters she deemed either 'important or interesting.' The way Grabiner put it, it was very clear that he thought that the headmistress indulged in vacationing rather than investigation when she went off 'on safari' as she called it. Because the headmistress could not be counted on to give independent lessons during the summer, if Amoretta wanted to improve her understanding of green magic under a real master, now was the time to do it.

Amoretta was so preoccupied with her work that she didn't notice the murmur of excitement pass through the class when it did, traveling like a current of electricity. She was leaning over her notes, attempting to determine if she might improve the duration of the vegetal memory charm she cast on Vivian daily if she tweaked the wording of the spell a bit, when Minnie gently kicked her under the desk. Then Amoretta's head jerked up, startled, and she realized at once that Minnie was looking meaningfully over her shoulder, toward the door to the first floor hallway. When it came to curiosity, Amoretta was a cat, and so she tactlessly turned right around in her seat to see what it is that Minnie found so interesting.

Grabiner was standing silently outside the closed door to the green magic classroom, looking in on her in wordless observation. This was something he had never done before - to her knowledge - and she thrilled with embarrassment as her cheeks flushed and she turned around hurriedly to bury her face in Vivian. As she turned, she caught Professor Potsdam waving merrily to the professor who stalked outside her door like one of the restless dead.

Amoretta's cheeks burned like flame and she at last took notice of the ripple of interest that was passing through the class in murmured asides. She felt completely idiotic to be so flustered by his attention because she was married to the man, and they had been sleeping in the same bed for a month now,  _and the whole school knew it_. They ate breakfast together every morning, and it was commonly gossiped that they spent an inordinate amount of time alone together in the school's dungeons. She had declared that she loved him in front of the entire student body with such passion and gusto that it might have been the slogan of her re-election speech.

And yet at this moment, absurdly, it felt as if her cheeks would never cool off.

It was the middle of the day, in the middle of a lesson, and he had left his class to walk down the hallway to look in on her.

It was as if all the stars had fallen from the sky, to thud into the hard earth like old pennies.

What had been a passive duty, a push for Farspeak twice a day to reassure himself of her condition, had now become an active one, and her entire green magic class had observed him at it.

She didn't think that she could be more embarrassed if he had brought her bouquet of red roses and then kissed her pointedly in front of the class.

As this reflection consumed her mind in vivid detail, she sank bonelessly down against her desk face first, her hair covering her like a shroud.

All of this happened in perhaps fifteen seconds.

"He's gone now," Minnie whispered, but Amoretta made no attempt to move from where she had sunk, totally inert. She was trying very hard not to think of the thing she could not help but think of, now that she had thought of it in the first place.

_Roses. And then. In front of the class._

She was going to die.

"Pity he wouldn't come in," Petunia Potsdam lamented from near the front of the class, where she was offering hints to a boy who was trying to teach his bluebell to croon like Ella Fitzgerald. "I'm sure he'd have found the lesson most enjoyable."

Amoretta was grateful for this small mercy, because she worried she might have expired on the spot if he'd actually come in to speak with her.

Suki Sato apparently thought this might have already come to pass, because she piped up with, "Professor Potsdam, Amoretta seems to have died."

"Oh no, my rosy little robin, you will discover that she is perfectly fine: as fit as a fiddle, really," the headmistress answered mildly, continuing on with her instruction without interruption. "She's only twitterpated."

"That sounds very serious," Suki noted thoughtfully, one pale finger pressed against her lips. It was really impossible to know whether she was enjoying Professor Potsdam's joke, or honestly though that Amoretta might be in dire straits.

The headmistress though, found it all very droll.

"Yes," she agreed, "Amoretta's case is very serious indeed, and so far advanced that it is most certainly chronic."


	16. Fourteen: La Permanencia de la Felicidad Sobre la Tierra / The Permanence of Happiness on Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and in which your hand among the fried potatoes  
> and your mouth singing in the winter  
> until the roast arrives  
> would be for me the permanence  
> of happiness on earth.
> 
> Ah my life,  
> it is not only the fire that burns between us  
> but all of life,  
> the simple story,  
> the simple love  
> of a woman and a man  
> like everyone.
> 
> \-- Pablo Neruda, No Sólo El Fuego / Not Only the Fire, Donald D. Walsh translation

Amoretta and Minnie arrived in the well-appointed kitchens of Iris Academy approximately a half hour after the mess hall had closed for the evening, as they had been instructed. The proprietress of these kitchens, whose approval they had already secured, was a very formidable kitchen witch whom everyone simply called 'Cook.'

There were other cooks at Iris Academy, but none of them were called by such a singular and succinct appellation as  _Cook_. The kitchens were Cook's demesne, and she ruled them as readily and mercilessly as any kilted chieftain. Her dominion was supreme and unquestioned, and the other cooks and cooks' assistants at the academy were her loyal and devoted vassals. She required their devotion and their skills, as it took more than one person, however formidable, to feed a campus of over a hundred students.

The kitchens of the academy occupied quite a substantial portion of the main building's first basement. Due to a cunning dumbwaiter system that transported food and empty plates between enchanted cabinets, it was quite easy to move food up for service in the cafeteria, despite the distance. This first basement had high windows that peeked out of the building's foundation to provide natural light and to vent heat during the daylight hours. As it was by now already past the dinner hour, the daylight outside the windows was fading into deepening dusk, so the kitchens were now lit by regular round crystals set into the ceiling.

The crystals looked almost like ordinary recessed lighting, a trick that witches had long ago developed of hiding their purely magical objects in plain sight. Nearly all the lamps at Iris Academy had these round crystals in them - instead of incandescent light bulbs - owing to the fact that Iris Academy ran completely independent of electricity. By now Amoretta had become quite accustomed to the magical lamps that were such a mainstay of the witch world. They could be turned on and off with a wand, or a touch, or by using the very pedestrian switches which were arranged very conveniently on the walls, just like electrical light switches.

If one didn't know what to look for, it was easy to take for granted that the lamps in the academy used the same, regular tungsten filament light bulbs as the lamps in more ordinary schools.

After all, the bulbs in the lamps looked quite like regular light bulbs at first glance: they were smooth and round and opaline, but rather than being glass bulbs with a coiled strip of tungsten filament inside of them, they were artificed stones, a product of alchemy, or as Iris Academy called it, black magic. Ellen had explained them as something like magical batteries, which stored mana easily enough, and then let it out slowly in a cool glow, providing a very convenient light source which needed to be recharged only very rarely. Most of the lighting in Iris Academy came at the courtesy of these stones, although some parts of the main building, including the second floor, still featured more antiquated flame lights in glass bells. These lights were not as efficient as the lights powered by the magical stones, because the flame lights produced some heat as well as light, which was generally wasteful. They were also more fiddly, required more tending, and had to be recharged more frequently, but there was certainly something almost hypnotically calming about watching the magic flame dance inside the glass bell. Amoretta liked the flame lights, although it was inconvenient to have to fetch someone else (usually her husband) to light one again when it went out for any reason. She still stubbornly refused to learn to make even a spark, and it was very tricky to light them with a match.

As Amoretta reflected on the pleasing qualities of the flame lights in the upstairs corridors, she stood before one of the large commercial ovens that occupied a long wall in the academy's kitchen. It ran on a magical flame, just as the flame lights on the second floor did. Iris Academy was quite self-sufficiently magically maintained. The oven in front of her was brought to temperature with the touch from a witch's hand, as opposed to a mechanical dial, and the conditions inside the oven were adjusted with one's fingers drawn across a translucent panel that appeared in the thin air in front of the oven while the oven was in operation.

Now that she had toured the kitchens it was perhaps a little clearer why Minnie had asked her, "Have you ever baked before? I mean, in a magical kitchen." But baking was baking, and ovens were ovens, and whether they were magical or electric or gas, they all operated according to the same general principles. Fortunately, the magical ovens were easy enough to understand once one was given a brief introduction. They were meant to be simple and convenient to use. No one wanted to unravel arcane mysteries while in the course of making a casserole.

Cook was engaged in a final inspection of her kitchen as they stood patiently by, waiting for leave to get to work. Finally she seemed satisfied that everything was as spotless as an operating theater and as shipshape as a nuclear submarine, and allowed that the girls could begin their baking.

Before Cook left for her commute home, Amoretta and Minnie were both warned very seriously to clean up after themselves after they had finished making their messes. Once she was satisfied that they understood that the kitchens were a sacred place that ought to be respected and treated well, Cook departed, after threatening to turn them into toads if she found her kitchen out of sorts when she arrived back at school the next morning to begin preparing for breakfast.

After she had gone, Amoretta laid one finger curiously against the side of her face.

"Do you suppose she could really do that?" she asked. "Turn us into toads, I mean. I don't want to give her any reason to, and certainly it is good manners for us to clean up after ourselves, since we have been let the use of the kitchen, but could she really turn us into toads, just like that?" Amoretta shivered at the thought, but this shiver was really just a thrill of excitement running up her spine at the thought of something so interesting as being turned into a toad.

Minnie shrugged. "I suppose that some people must get turned into toads some of the time, but it's really just something kitchen witches say."

"So they're always threatening to turn people into toads?" Amoretta asked, quite taken by this idea.

"Or gingerbread," Minnie agreed. "It's like when your mother says 'Behave yourself, or I'll cook you up in a pot,' when you're little and being naughty."

"Oh, I see," Amoretta said agreeably, as if she understood this anecdote intrinsically, although she herself had never faced the threat of being cooked in a pot for being naughty. Of course, she reasoned, she had never been threatened with cookery because she hadn't had a mother of her own to deliver such threats. It was nice to learn what was normal, though. Her Aunt Tulip had never threatened to cook her, although once when she had been terribly naughty, Tulip had threatened to turn her into a cheese.

What being turned into a cheese would entail, Amoretta did not know, but she had resolved not to find out.

As the two girls waited for the rest of the bakers to appear, they busied themselves by unpacking the supplies that had been bought for their cookie-making. Minnie arranged the ingredients in neat piles on one counter, while Amoretta checked over their amounts and consulted her lists. She had already made a plan by which all the things they wished to bake could be made most efficiently, since it was already seven thirty, and she had promised Grabiner that they'd be done with their baking and cleaning by ten thirty. Of course, it all would have been simple and easy if the two Brownies had recalled the fundraiser even the week previous, because they might have spent a whole Saturday baking and cleaning up after their messes, or they might have scheduled a day off from classes. Now there was not really enough time to be had, and everything was a whirlwind, but Amoretta enjoyed the challenge and excitement.

Ellen and Virginia were the first of the would-be bakers to arrive, and Ellen was soon busy with Minnie and Amoretta, getting out mixing bowls, arranging cookie sheets, and cutting parchment paper with such geometric skill that she would have certainly impressed a papercraft artist. Virginia sat on a stool and watched all the industry with interest, munching on a bag of semisweet chocolate chips until these morsels were rescued from her.

About this time, and just as Amoretta and Minnie had begun discussing what ought to be made first, Minnie's own help arrived in the form of Jacob Blaising and Manuel Arias, both with armfuls of aprons borrowed from the black magic classroom. The small boy with the silver-ticked hair was a surprise, and a welcome addition to their baking party, since it was common knowledge that he was the freshman class's best student in black magic, and an aspiring chef besides.

Manuel, although normally shy and reserved around others, became extroverted (and something of a tyrant) when the preparation of food was involved. He had soon tied an apron around himself and was directing the girls and Jacob to various tasks around the kitchen. Amoretta was relieved that he seemed perfectly willing to take charge of the entire operation, as her own experience in baking mainly ran to making lopsided layer cakes from boxes of mix. She was, as usual, confident, although not particularly experienced. She approached most everything with the thought, 'It isn't so very hard, if you only apply yourself,' which is why she thought herself capable of many things which other people might have thought were right out. She was not sensible enough to realize that things ought to have been difficult, and so threw herself into them wholeheartedly and only bothered to sort out difficulties when they came along.

She believed in leaping before she looked, because this made life much more interesting than trying things the other way around.

Fortunately things had turned out all right this time, as they always did, in her experience. Manuel was in his element. He trotted about from one mixing bowl to another, giving his advice, and although he always tried to say things very kindly, when he was displeased with someone's efforts it showed in the large ears that stood up on top of his head and flattened down with disappointment, or flicked back with aggravation.

"No, no," he would insist with a flip of his bushy tail, "Like  _this_ ," and then he would take the bowl away from whomever it was that was mixing it incorrectly, or all out of order, and set it to rights himself.

Once he gave Virginia quite a brow beating when he discovered that she was trying to whip egg whites stiff with streaks of yolk clearly visible in the bowl. Thoroughly chastened, Virginia had turned the task over to Ellen, who seemed to understand the underlying principle behind aerating the whites, and Manuel had left them at work, although he returned from time to time to eye their work suspiciously, as if he were not entirely sure Virginia could be trusted.

Manuel seemed to know how to do everything, from putting the eggs they required in a warm water bath to bring them quickly to room temperature, to a spell to use on the butter to soften it just the right amount. When he was not busy forestalling some cookie disaster or another, he was patiently answering Ellen's thoughtful, scientific questions about the baking process.

When Ellen was not questioning Manuel on why one used baking soda and not baking powder in one recipe, or how Cream of Tartar was used in other circumstances, she kept herself busy supervising Virginia, who otherwise might have eaten all the chocolate she was meant to mix into the brownie batter. Minnie and Jacob were having a friendly disagreement about whether to put regular M&Ms or peanut M&Ms into the cookies they were making. Minnie wanted to stick to the recipe, but Jacob insisted that peanuts would add the indefinable quality of 'pizzazz' so often missing in bake sale cookies.

The kitchen full of her friends was so lively, filled with friendly chatter and laughter and activity, that Amoretta didn't notice Grabiner when he came in through the back hall. He stood for several seconds quite unnoticed by the crowd of rowdy amateur bakers, observing them all quietly, his arms crossed over his chest.

Distracted by Ellen's shriek of, "You have to butter the pan first!" Amoretta turned to look at the two Horses - who were brawling quite earnestly over the preparation of the first batch of brownies - and saw Grabiner standing behind them, against the wall. Smiling easily at him, she slid off her stool and left the preparation of the white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies she had been making in Manuel's capable hands and went to talk to her husband.

The other parties took no notice of him. They were all acquainted well enough with Amoretta's situation to know that when she was around, Grabiner was bound to turn up eventually. He rarely stayed long, however, as he generally did not enjoy the society of freshman students other than his wife. He regarded them as an obstacle to his peace of mind, and they regarded him as a summer rain squall, somewhat unpredictable in his temper and frequency of appearance, but bound to blow off eventually if one just politely ignored him.

Amoretta was a little surprised he had stopped in to see how their cookie-making was progressing. She had expected that he would spend the time after dinner working down in the dungeons, since he could be certain that she would be busy with the student council until at least ten o'clock. She knew that this was one of the last days left to him to check the fitness of the dungeons he was preparing for the senior exams, since they began on Monday.

As far as she knew, he still hadn't time to cast Infamy Cradle again, and the spell was disagreeable and time-consuming to lay, as far as he had led her to understand.

When she approached him with a curious smile, he observed her very carefully.

"Are you feeling well this evening?" he asked her.

She nodded.

"Not overly tired?" he asked again, and it became clear to her that he had stopped in to be sure she was keeping up her end of the bargain she had made with him.

"Charging along like a cavalry pony," she assured him with a grin. "Manuel's been helping loads and loads, so I think we ought to be done on time." Her own industry was clear in the streak of flour across the front of her apron and the fact that her hair was tied up neatly on her head, under a kerchief, her ever-present and ever-forgotten glasses perched on top like a cherry on a cupcake.

"You'd  _better_ be," Grabiner warned, raising a finger, as if the consequences for the bakers running over the promised time were dire indeed.

"Yes sir, yes sir," she agreed placatingly, with an impish wrinkle of her nose. She was drawing a great deal of pleasure from the practical activity of baking with her friends, and this showed in her eyes when she smiled. With a careless farewell wave, she left him to settle the quarrel between Virginia and Ellen herself.

She expected him to excuse himself quietly after that, as he often did, disappearing to take care of the other business he had that evening, but instead he simply stood there against the wall, watching her intently, apparently lost in thought.

She busied herself helping Minnie prepare another batch of brownies, and when these were safely in the oven, she looked around the kitchen, attempting to gauge everyone's progress, and found that Grabiner still remained against the wall, thoughtful and silent. He had now been standing and watching her for the better part of an hour, at least.

Amoretta sighed to herself. He was certainly known to be protective, but this was now getting to be ridiculous. She made up her mind to speak to him, because there was no reason for him to waste his time supervising her cookie-making when she felt perfectly well and he ought to be doing his own work.

"Hieronymous," she murmured as she came up to him, low enough so that he would not be embarrassed by her calling him by his given name in front of her friends who had no such rights, imagined or otherwise. "I really am feeling well. You don't have to stand there like a scarecrow trying to frighten off illness. Besides," she said with a smile meant to provoke his dry sense of humor, "Unless you're ready to belt on an apron and help us, I think it's best you get along to your own work. You're making the troops nervous," she said with a brief flip of her thumb over her shoulder, toward her friends, who had by this point begun to eye Grabiner from time to time with mild suspicion.

They all had permission to be out past curfew that night (at least until ten thirty) on student council business, but they all knew there was really no accounting for Grabiner's mind. He might be waiting around simply to give them all demerits for breaking curfew, as soon as the clock struck nine. Of course, Amoretta knew he was up to no such thing, but she couldn't really blame her friends for taking a more conservative view of things.

If Amoretta had meant to make him smile at her privately, if she had meant to break him out of his pensive mood with her familiar teasing, she did not. If anything, he seemed confused by her words, as if still distracted by his thoughts.

The truth was, he hadn't been lingering out of concern for her health (although naturally it concerned him) but rather because he had been enjoying watching her busy and happily engaged with her friends. Her cheeks were rosy, and she certainly looked healthy and eager. She was full of indomitable spirit and drive, stirred up by the lively society of her friends. She seemed unusually vibrant to him at that moment, like a jewel refracting light or a flower that has just opened up. He was not really in the habit of actively paying attention to how attractive she was to him. In fact, he was in the habit of actively  _ignoring_ how attractive she was to him, and had been engaged in this habitual self-censorship for some months now. But sometimes, sometimes it was very difficult to ignore how lovely she could be. At the moment she was quite domestic, which was really very appealing to a man with a tired, hungry heart who had never had a permanent home or stable family of his own. She was as cheerful as a warbler in the grass hunting for bugs, and the simple, honest pleasure she seemed to be getting from making messes with her friends reminded him very strongly that she had  _created_ the one home he did have herself, as if it were nothing, as easy and thoughtless an activity as breathing.

As the clerk at the supermarket had correctly opined, it did not really matter at all if she were good or skilled at any of the things one might have defined as 'keeping house.' He could not have cared less - except from perhaps an academic standpoint - whether she could soft-boil eggs or not. The fact was, she could make a home out of nothing simply by  _being there_ , simply by smiling or pouting or getting into scrapes, or whatever else she was always doing with herself.

He wanted to catch after her hand, but he did not.

Amoretta worried that by lingering in the kitchen to watch her, he would miss out on the last productive hours of work he had before examinations began, and she worried that he would be cross and temperamental about it later, so again she gently prodded him to leave and go about his own work. She had no earthly idea that he was consumed by such difficult and troubling - if tender - thoughts.

Amoretta believed wholeheartedly that he loved her, because he had told her so. Even if he had said it only a single time in words she could hear with her ears, he was always telling her with the things he did, and sometimes with the things he didn't do. She didn't doubt that he loved her in the least. Given all this, it might be natural for one to suppose that the idea that Grabiner was deeply considering their relationship might not have been a completely foreign one to Amoretta, particularly when he had spent an hour standing by and watching her pensively. The truth was, however, that Amoretta was by now so accustomed to Grabiner treating her more like a pet rabbit than his wife, that it never occurred to her that he might be tormenting himself.

Certainly he didn't seem more tormented than usual, merely cross and dry, pensive and thoughtful, which was really quite ordinary in her experience.

In a city where it always rains, one is hard pressed to take notice when it rains a bit harder than usual.

At last, reluctantly, persuaded by her good sense, Grabiner left, turning back to look at her very seriously one last time.

"Ten thirty," he said shortly, as he paused in the hallway, one of his hands against the wall.

"Ten thirty," she agreed pleasantly, and then waved to him cheerfully as he departed for the basement stairs that lead to the dungeons.

* * *

After having been expelled from Amoretta's bright, enthusiastic, and infectious baking party, Grabiner had dutifully gone down into the quiet dungeons to do the job for which Iris Academy employed him. He was in a state of extreme distraction and agitation however, and could not really keep his mind on his work. He tested out several traps almost automatically, and dismissed any monsters that harassed him with an absent wave of his hand to teleport them away, but he was aware of how preoccupied he was.

Everything seemed difficult this evening. Everything seemed impossible.

At last, tired of wandering around aimlessly and checking the same traps repeatedly, he sat down on a convenient boulder to brood. He laid a sanctuary around himself so he would not be disturbed by inquisitive dungeon life and then commenced to think, as if he might have been sitting in a warm study, and not in dungeon dozens of levels below ground.

He couldn't work like this.

He had to think.

* * *

It is very difficult to trace the beginning of a meaningful relationship to a single point in time, even when it seems that such a thing ought to be a simple exercise in recollecting the facts. He had seen Amoretta for the first time in September, when she had come upon him as unexpectedly as April weather. It was silly to imagine that he had fallen in love with her at first sight, because certainly he had not, certainly she was not the sort of romantic leading lady who could have conjured such feelings in a cynical, bitter man who was early old and distrustful of anything unfamiliar.

But at this moment, he hopelessly loved the girl she had been then, at that moment when they had met under the trees.

He had only been in love once before - arguably, he had only ever really loved one other person, apart from his nurse, and perhaps the snotty, unkempt Button - and he found the experiences compared very well to one another: that is, it was very difficult to sort either of them out into lines of cause and effect. He believed in cause and effect. He believed in measured, thoughtful behavior, but in this case, as in that case, things were not orderly and simple. Time and emotion did not seem to flow constantly in one direction, but causality seemed to be very mixed up.

When he had seen Violet that first time during convocation (also in September, just as the leaves had begun to turn), a bright, sassy little know-it-all I-told-you-so, he had hated her. He had loathed and despised her. What he hadn't understood until later was that he had also loved her. It had all happened impossibly easily, despite all his defenses, despite all his intentions. It had been quite natural to love her, as if loving her were written into his bones. She was awful and difficult and trying and thought very well of herself, in her cheap shoes and ill-fitting clothes with a mind like the fine edge of a razor, and he had loved her because she was brilliant, but also because she was sometimes strangely clumsy and awkward, because, from that first moment, she had also loved him.

She had told him so, blurted it out in the middle of an unrelated conversation, and then continued on as if she'd said nothing particularly noteworthy. She had grabbed him by the hand and dragged him along after her, and soon he found that he was always right in the middle of her messes, because certainly, she was always right in the middle of one mess or another. Her wild, carefree charm was intoxicating. She burned her candle at seven ends, like an end times messiah who prophesied the paradise of continued existence. She was completely irreverent, impractical, and candid. She heaped up miracles like they were cheaper by the dozen, and made genius seem as easy as breathing. Without really meaning to, he became the gatekeeper, her partner, the devil's advocate, the one who was there to constantly remind her that she could not really carry moonbeams home in a jar.

It was his special privilege. He was the only one who was allowed to remind her that Narnia could not be easily found at back of the coat closet (although a reasonable approximation existed if one had the know-how to open the Spiral Gate). He adequately put down or disposed of anyone else who threatened her passionate, delirious, idealistic view of the world. She had had, as Petunia Potsdam had put it, the faith of a rainbow, and that faith was something he had protected, as best he was able. She had loved him because he was dreadful, because he took himself too seriously, because he was a boy like a chestnut burr - all needle pin pricks on the outside, but with a heart that was steadfast: reserved, but steadfast. She told him all of this easily, like these truths were not secrets to be kept and guarded. She was open and honest, and heaped up her feelings in front of him like piles of ill-gotten pirate treasure.

She called him by his name as if it were an easy thing, as if they had known each other for ages, as if she really understood the shape and the meaning of it. She used his name the way no one else did, as if every time she said it, she made him more himself that he had been before.

Ridiculous, audacious, terrible, and impossible, she was _the Peerless_. He had loved her because it was all he could do with himself, even though it had not been simple and convenient.

She had never been in the habit of doing things that were easy, simple, or convenient.

Rather like someone else that he knew.

Perhaps the simplest truth was that he could not say when he had really come to love that second girl, the one who had become, despite his best intentions, the new center of his life. He could not really discover the first moment, that true moment of origin, just as he could not say when he had come to love Violet. When he thought back over the time he had known her, he never arrived at a point where he could clearly declare that he had not loved her. Peppered through those common, uncountable moments were glimpses of her true, honest heart, like bits of beryl in rough stone. She had not substantively changed over the course of the year: at the beginning, in that first moment when she had nearly bowled him over quadrangle, sending his books and papers flying, and then dropped her suitcase on her own foot in her haste to apologize, she had been quite wholly herself: a whirlwind of activity, interest, and perpetual mishaps. She was the Queen of Spades: Black Maria; Calamity Jane.

He couldn't clearly arrange their time together like it was neatly demarcated by the swing of a pendulum. Instead, the moments seemed more like her bicycle playing cards, shuffled together in no apparent order, and then spread across a table, so that their tempting, glossy faces told a story of two school terms in infinitely more moments than such a span could rationally be expected to hold. It was not a thing that made logical sense, like a box that was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Of course, such things were possible with magic.

And perhaps that's what it was that Amoretta had brought to his life: a spark of the arcane and unknowable. If was as if from that first moment when she had collided with him and landed flat on her bottom, that this brief moment of contact had set in motion events that unfolded unseen and unsuspected. Color had seeped into the world, and the story of the two of them had been born: a story painted in humor and care and pain and regret, a story painted in blood, hers, and his own. By the time he awoke to the realization that things in his life were changing, he was so hopelessly tangled up in her that he really had no hope of escape.

He could still see her sitting there across from him, looking so weary she might have dropped to sleep on the table, her fingers wrapped around the steaming mug of chai. Despite her obvious fatigue, she had chatted happily about the day's events, although he had been in no mood to listen to her chatter, and had tried to quiet her unsuccessfully several times. It seemed as if she were perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation with him whether or not he said anything to her at all. This was another one of the great mysteries of her character: she could make any situation into a dialogue between them, even if he refused to say a word.

Now when he thought of her sitting there in the booth, turning the small, pink peppermint-smelling votive candle that she had bought for herself over in her hands and neglecting to drink the tea he had ordered for her, because she simply refused to stop talking long enough to swallow it, it was not with consternation, but with fondness. Well, that wasn't entirely true. It was still with consternation, but it was also with fondness. He wanted to reach out and press her fingertips to the mug of tea, a firm reminder to drink it. He would let the girl who sat across from him in his memories sit beside him now, and lean her head on his shoulder when she was tired.

How had it come to be like this? He really couldn't say, because looking at the past, everything was colored with the lens of the present. He had once taunted that she presumed quite a lot, but of course now he had (reluctantly) accepted that what she presumed was generally quite true and had been for some time.

She had fallen asleep in the booth at the Glen, her tea half drunk and cooling in the autumn night. He had shaken her awake and been cross with her, but she really hadn't minded, simply thanked him for his care, and that had made him more cross. She was an awful girl, the kind who couldn't be trusted not to wander out into traffic. He had wanted to give her demerits then, but hadn't be able to think of any reason to do so, other than that her behavior was personally exasperating.

Of course, if he had given into his desire to give her demerits because of her constantly surprising and upsetting personality, then he would have had time to do nothing else for the entire year _besides give her demerits_.

"I think you're a little like Santa Claus," she had told him pertly before Christmas. "Only all you have is a Naughty list, and I'm pretty sure I'm the first five hundred names."

She was. Most certainly, she was continually exasperating. She was always underfoot, always asking all sorts of troublesome questions, always nosing into his business, always smiling at him, always being gentle and kind to him, always loving him, even in those early days when he had been desperately unwilling to give her the time of day. She was like a kitten with a string of firecrackers tied to her tail, the kind of maelstrom he most certainly did not want in his life.

But from that first moment, there she had been. As if not content with their first collision, she managed to run bodily into him in the hallways four more times before the Christmas holiday, getting demerits every time for her trouble, and once even audaciously suggesting that he ought to pay attention to where he was going.

"After all," she had said judiciously, "I'm not the one who's always reading a book while he's walking. That's dangerous, you know!"

Of course, he never collided with anyone else, and every time he encountered her in the hallways it was as if an innocent pedestrian had tread in front of an oncoming freight train. How such a small person got up such a tremendous momentum he could not say at all, but he suspected it had to do with having a long running start.

Of course, students were not supposed to run in the halls of the main building, and she assured him that she didn't, or rather she did only when she had a very good reason, which was apparently most of the time.

In the end, she did whatever she thought was best, regardless of the situation. Like Pollyanna she had a basket full of gladness, and like Tom Sawyer her life seemed to be a series of catastrophes and misadventures of varying degrees. She casually rewrote reality when she found she didn't like it, and she rewrote the narrative of his life as if it were nothing at all, something to be done off hand, in between all the other things she had to do.

He was a disciplinarian who had been made into her accomplice, without his even realizing it. At some point he had ceased standing over her in judgement and instead found himself standing beside her, willing to go to hell and back just to keep her hand in his. It had been dreadful to realize that he had become like  _one of them._  In certain quarters, he was even beginning to become  _popular_ , rather than feared or otherwise loathed. Her campaign to improve his popularity with the student body had been, he had to admit, at least partially successful.

They had even invited him to their reindeer games, where his treasured wife reigned as queen and local goddess. They loved her. Of course they loved her. Like him, they could but not. She was very easy to love. But no one knew her the way he did. That was his privilege. The private part of her life was spent in his company.

He was not jealous that her ragamuffin friends occupied part of her time, interest, and energy because it was patently obvious that she had devoted herself to him with an almost  _unwholesome_ intensity.

At no moment in their storied past of slowly spreading colors had he ever (really) doubted that most self-evident truth: she loved him. This fact was difficult and inconvenient and upsetting and very complicating, but was certainly very obviously true.

And he could not say when he had begun to love her, as difficult and inconvenient and complicated and unwanted as it was.

Surely he had already loved her that moment he had rushed down the steps at the front of the main building to find her hanging upside down from a tree in the quadrangle, about seven feet off the ground, wriggling like a fish on a hook. Clearly distressed and most certainly confused, she had put both her palms out above his head, and he had quite naturally reached up to take her hands, intending to teleport her safely out of the tree and onto the ground -

but then she had fallen right out of the tree and landed on him so heavily it was as if her small body was a sack filled with bricks and lead. They had both hit the ground then in an unfortunate and unromantic tangle of limbs that had not been sorted out by the time Petunia Potsdam arrived on the scene.

It was the most memorable freshman examination he had ever given in thirteen years of teaching. It was impossible that he didn't love her then, because the Amoretta who had fallen on him was certainly the Amoretta who had stupidly crossed a seven circle ward, was certainly the Amoretta he had married, the girl whose life he had bought with his own, the girl who loved him earnestly and without shame, as if she simply didn't know any better.

Then it had been something he had not yet understood, like turning over leaf after leaf in a book and never quite realizing when one  _comprehends_. It had crept upon him silently, that understanding. One evening he had simply looked up and realized that the girl who sat in the floor playing cards with his manus was _his wife_  in name and nature. He couldn't get along without her, and was not really willing to entertain the notion of trying. She had become the thing that made him happy, that eased his heart, that made him laugh, that worried him endlessly.

She kept company with vagabonds, was courted by a devil, and was always dropping charity from her pockets like she was trying to lay a trail of breadcrumbs through a forest.

And yet.

She was kind and brave and sweet and peppery, and an awful, silly little idiot who seemed to attract trouble the way flowers attracted bees. They were nothing alike and they were entirely alike. She was not to be underestimated, but nor was she to be overestimated.

She wrote letters to stuffed rabbits, sat nonchalantly on the edges of tables rather than in chairs, wore kitten panties, worried that people would discover that she wore kitten panties, fancied herself a girl detective, clung to him in the night as if he were her most beloved security blanket, never returned the pocket handkerchiefs he loaned to her, and had a very agonizing tendency to begin taking her clothes off in front of him, as if he were a disinterested coat rack rather than her worryingly interested husband.

It was not something he deserved, but it was something she had offered, and he wasn't such a fool that he'd refuse it. It was something that stood between the two of them, like a secret truth that sent such a positive thrill up her spine that he could feel it on the back of his own neck.

He had not known how to treat her, and so he had treated her badly. He hadn't done this out of malice or distrust, but simply because of a lack of experience. He had kept himself apart from others for so long that he had no real understanding of how to treat her properly. It had been a long time since he'd stood in front of the stone that marked Violet's empty grave. And he was reluctant to give to Amoretta what he had once given to Violet, for Amoretta was surely not Violet, no matter how maddeningly similar they seemed in the queerest and most disperate of circumstances. He would not make Amoretta into Violet, and the fear that he might have done so subconsciously made him sick with shame and self-loathing.

So he had tried to avoid the question, had tried to avoid the difficulties, had tried to ignore the implications of his actions.

And that had failed utterly, because Amoretta had dragged the truth out of his easily, with a simple question.

It was still something he believed with unnerving certainty: he required no one's permission to love her.

But what to do with that love, with that knowledge, that was something he was not so certain about.

He did not really understand what it was that she wanted from him, and was entirely unwilling to give her what _he wanted to give_. Everything had seemed very fragile and easily broken: his heart and her pale fingers. It had all seemed impossible, that she might really want to be with him, in his empty house of barbed wire, and he had  _nothing_ to offer her - but then there she had been, bloody and bedraggled, having climbed through all his patiently laid defenses without complaint. Once in the sanctuary of his heart, she had begun audaciously arranging things just the way she liked them, and he had found himself quite powerless to stop her.

Even before he had married her, she had already become his care, she had already become distracting and frustrating and all-consuming.

He had tried to keep his distance from her, drawing line after line in the sand, but that was the thing with lines in the sand: they disappeared easily when the wind shifted. She had crossed every line despite all his warnings, and at last he had found himself with nowhere else to retreat. They had been circling one another for months, the distance between them growing shorter and shorter, his margin of safety evaporating into the air, until at last they had been side by side, so close at hand that if he moved at all, he came in contact with her, skin to skin.

He had tried his best to ignore her, built walls she had either climbed over or simply barreled through like a runaway train. Like a train, she seemed to be capable of traveling in only one direction: toward him. The reality of the situation was that their intimacy was no longer something he could put off or ignore. If he was perfectly coolly honest with himself, there wasn't really any reason to keep trying to put it off, other than habit, and his own (admitted) cowardice. She was of a legal age to give her consent, and certainly she had given every indication that she was  _willing_. He had already  _married_ her. Their marriage was a matter of public record, and at this point generally well accepted by all the denizens of the nation where he claimed citizenship: Iris Academy. Even if it hadn't been public knowledge, even if it hadn't been accepted, it probably would not have mattered to him much at this point. He didn't really give a damn about what anyone else thought when it came to the two of them: whether they approved or disapproved; what they knew, or thought that they knew; what they  _suspected_. They could draw their own conclusions.

He had put a gimmal ring on her finger and made an oath with her that would last dozens of lifetimes. He had long passed the point of tempering his actions based on what others might think.

He had acted on instinct, betting his heart and his life that she was worth the risk. Of course he'd won that bet. He had now begun to understand what Logan Phifer was apparently already certain of: betting on Amoretta was always a sure thing.

He could count on her to come out right. He was not a betting man, but he would continue to bet on her, no matter how dangerous and difficult the stakes might be.

She had told him that she was uneasy when she was away from him, and that was something he could understand in a tangible, physical way. He was uneasy when she was out of his sight, even when he knew, logically speaking, that she was perfectly safe. He had failed her once already. He suffered from a mild but chronic paranoia that he would fail her again.

As he had failed Violet.

At first he had been wary and uncomfortable when she had moved into his rooms, but had accepted the sacrifice of his privacy as the necessary cost of an investment he had already made in her safety. It was his responsibility to protect her from the things that threatened, unseen and terrifying. Now, even as little as a month later, he could not imagine his rooms without her. Her physical presence - the material evidence of her life - was very comforting to him. Her robe was hanging up in the bathroom, next to his. The small trunk where she kept her things was perpetually open, rather than ordered and closed as his was. She had by now brought up her books, which sat in tumbled down piles on her side of the bed.

_Her side of the bed._

It was no longer a strange and dizzying thought. Experience had made it common and true.

What had begun as a chaste arrangement - well, perhaps it was time to come to a different arrangement.

* * *

As the hands of the clock crept around toward ten o'clock, Amoretta had a realization.

"Oh," she said, turning around quickly. "I nearly forgot. We're supposed to make some cereal bars too." She shrugged. "Well, at least they're easy to make."

Virginia made a face when Amoretta said the words 'cereal bars.' "Barf," she said categorically, offering a raised eyebrow and a curled upper lip. "The word 'cereal' is totally a synonym for 'whole grain,' which is not a word that means delicious. Saying 'cereal bars' sounds like you're planning to make them out of oat bran and quinoa or something. Let me tell you," she said, shaking her head, "Nobody's going to buy those, or anything else made with oatmeal  _or_ quinoa. Oatmeal cookies are the kind of cookies your grandma makes for you when she doesn't like you."

"I don't mean oatmeal bars," Amoretta laughed, although she did feel that Virginia was being a bit unjust to oatmeal cookies, which were still  _cookies_ , after all. "I meant when you take cereal and mix marshmallow fluff and melted butter into it, and then you let it cool - "

"Oh," Virginia said, much relieved, "You mean Rice Krispie Treats."

Amoretta nodded. "Yes those, only I don't think we ought to call them Rice Krispie Treats, since Professor Grabiner didn't buy us Rice Krispies," she said, turning around to the counter behind her. "I guess we didn't have enough money. He bought us 'Rice Totos' instead," she said, exhibiting the bag for all to see. Indeed, the bag did say 'Rice Totos' in punchy yellow script. A picture of an overly happy cartoon cairn terrier was printed on the bag underneath the words.

Virginia took the bag of cereal from Amoretta dubiously, turning it over and over in her hands, and even holding it up to the light, as if she feared the the cereal inside might not be up to the quality that marshmallow cereal bars required. At last she opened the bag despite Ellen's sound of distress and popped a handful of the rice totos in her mouth.

After munching for a moment she gave the assembled students a thumbs up as she handed the open bag back to Amoretta.

"Rice totos are pretty good, actually," Virginia said. "But I still don't think we should call the marshmallow things 'Toto Treats,'" she shook her head. "People are gonna think we made dog biscuits."

"Maybe you're right," Amoretta agreed uncertainly.

"And what's wrong with dog biscuits?" Manuel demanded, planting his hands on his hips. His ears were flattened against his head again.

"Err," stammered Amoretta, "Nothing. I mean, I'm sure they're very nice, it's just that I'm not sure the student body - I mean, you know  _most_ of the student body - "

Manuel, who had been watching her attempt to cover her faux pas with little success, at last could not keep a straight face and burst out laughing, covering his eyes with his hands.

"Amoretta, I'm  _teasing_ ," he admitted between helpless bouts of laughter.

Timid Manuel playing such a trick made everyone else laugh too, and they were still at it, Amoretta laughing and threatening to give Manuel a whack with a rolled up newspaper, when their baking party was  _crashed_.

"Hello ladies," came the self-assured voice of Donald Danson. He paused and wrinkled his nose slightly as his gaze fell on Jacob, and he amended, "And ladies." He paused again briefly before adding, "And Manuel."

Jacob rolled his eyes and shook his head briefly, but otherwise ignored what Donald clearly thought was a snappy joke. Donald and Luke Phifer - who was also out despite the fact that curfew had already passed - both pulled up stools and sat themselves down at the counter across from the piles and piles of neatly wrapped cookies and brownies.

Virginia put her hands on her hips as her brother looked over the cookies appraisingly. "Don't think you can just invite yourself in and snatch some cookies. All these are for the sale tomorrow."

Donald gave his sister a sidelong look that said _oh please_ , and then said, "Don't confuse me with yourself, Urchin." He shrugged. "What I really came to see was whether you'd actually succeeded in making anything you didn't eat yourself."

Virginia scowled, but Ellen giggled into her hand.

"Well," she admitted, "She did try to eat most of the baking chocolate, but I kept my eye on her."

Donald gave her a wink, "See Elle knows where it's at. That's why she's the brains of this operation."

"Flattering me isn't going to get you any cookies either," Ellen warned, but Donald shrugged goodnaturedly.

"It was worth a shot," he said.

Meanwhile Luke had been trying in a roundabout way to discover which of the batches of cookies Amoretta had made herself.

"Well," she laughed, "In a way, I've made a little bit of everything."

Like Manuel, she had spent most of the evening fluttering around the kitchen from cookie batch to cookie batch, bringing what was needed, and helping out when another pair of hands was required, reading out recipes, and fetching cookies out of the oven.

"Well then," Luke had laughed, "I guess we're just going to have to buy a little bit of everything."

Donald shrugged easily. "See, unlike somebody else in my family, I understand that you don't get something for nothing." He shifted his gaze to Amoretta. "Logan sent me to beat the rush and buy some cookies. Can you pack, oh I guess forty up for us? Your selection. We'll take whatever you like."

Virginia crossed her arms over her chest. "Most of these cookies are two and three dollars apiece, money bags. They're for a fundraiser. You're not shopping at the Cost Cutters."

Amoretta got between Virginia and her brother with fluttering hands, because Donald had already gotten out his wallet and was counting out twenties.

"Did I or did I not say that Logan had sent us?" Donald asked with a raised eyebrow and a shrug. "A hundred bucks enough, Amoretta?"

Amoretta threw her hands up. "You know it is," she said with mild exasperation. "You're going to run off with a quarter of the merchandise. But I guess it's fine. You're students too, and have a right to buy as many cookies as you want." She wheeled on him and pointed a stern finger. "But you better not be buying these to sell them at a profit in a week, do you hear me? My bake sale cookies are not for commodities trading!"

Donald laughed. "Cookies aren't exactly like crude oil," he said. "Week old cookies are probably worth less than fresh ones."

"I'd buy them!" Luke piped up enthusiastically, and Donald rolled his eyes in Luke's direction.

But Amoretta wasn't convinced. "Give me your word, Donald Danson," she said. "These cookies won't be resold."

"You know you've got it," Donald said, putting out his hand, and he and Amoretta shook on it.

Then she let out a sigh of relief and set about packing an assortment of cookies into a bag as Minnie took charge of the money that Donald had laid out on the counter.

"How does Logan Phifer end up with all that money?" Virginia demanded.

"Dubious means?" Ellen hazarded with a raised eyebrow.

"Bingo," Amoretta answered with mild embarrassment, as if remembering the night she had walked away with pockets full of cash. "And craps and stuff. All the games he organizes on the halls. He takes a percentage off the top of the kitty. He always has."

"It's all totally legitimate," Donald said with a grin. "We're all squared away with Potty Potsdam, so you can forget calling the authorities, Urchin. Logan Phifer is just a successful businessman."

Amoretta rolled her eyes as she finished packing away the cookies.

"And now since you two were so kind as to come visit our baking party even though it's after curfew, you, my  _legitimate business associates_ , can help us clean up the kitchen."

Donald flashed her a grin and gave her a thumbs up.

"That's the other reason Logan sent us," he said.

And so the Rice Toto bars were made and set to cool as the rest of the tired bakers tidied up the kitchen and did the dishes. Donald washed and Luke dried until he dropped so many of the cookie sheets on the floor with unsettling crashes that Ellen replaced him at his task and he was sent to sit with Amoretta, who was pricing the cookies. There, at least he caused no further disasters.

* * *

Having come to one decision, when he finally returned to his rooms, Grabiner was faced with another decision.

How was he to tell her what he had decided?

It was only after some thought that he decided that the best approach would be to write her letter which carefully explained the situation he found himself in, and then leave it in a place she was sure to discover it, like taped to the bathroom door, or on top of her trunk, which she would have to open if she wanted to change into her pajamas after a bath.

Judging from the passion with which she responded to the letters that arrived shoved halfway under the door from her suspect pen pal Mr. Hoppity, Amoretta was a born correspondent. Despite this fact, she had written only one letter to him in the course of their acquaintance, and it had been _that letter_ , the one she hadn't really written to him at all, but rather to Damien Ramsey, or  _for_ Damien Ramsey, he wasn't sure how important the distinction was. In fact, in that whole shameful debacle, Ellen Middleton had been her accomplice, as she had confessed to him later, which accounted for why the letter was not in her own handwriting.

As a declaration of affections, the letter was successful only as a sort of morbidly fascinating trainwreck. As soon as he had read the first line he had known what it was. He had received no small number of dreadful confessions over the years, particularly during the heinous confusion of freshman initiation week. He was duly acquainted with the most common and most awful turns of phrase that these confessions were constructed from, as if there were some sort of 'Professor Confession Mad Lib' letter form they all used for their own convenience.

But Amoretta's letter, although only half a page long, did not conform to this standard. Instead it was weird and dubious, with a patient and (insane) unified vision that was unmistakably hers. The narrative description of the letter stopped right in the middle of a most distressing line about her tongue, and then, as if she required no further segue at all, it concluded with the line 'Therefore, I love you. The end,' as if she had just finished giving a recital or a poetry reading.

He had kept the letter, not because he found it charming, or even hilarious (which it tragically was), but rather because he found it prime evidence of her (beautifully) disturbed view of the world. So he had bagged it up and was now waiting for the perfect moment to spring it as a surprise on an unsuspecting courtroom.  _You need to understand what kind of person she is_ , he would say to the jury, the judge, or the executioner.

In addition to that one letter, which had come into his possession without her knowledge or consent, he did know of one other thing she'd written to him, which might have been called a letter, although it had only been one line, a bit of a leaf, and a pressed flower one might have plucked from any suburban lawn.

That letter he had not kept, although now he wished he had not burned it. It might have calmed him a little to look at it as he composed his own letter.

He had sent the sprigs of sage and clover back to her with the personal conceit that it aggravated him that she misapprehended their relationship so badly, despite everything he said and did to set her straight. Now he understood that he had returned the gift not because he was angry, but because he was wary of having what he felt in his secret heart revealed so casually and easily.

Naturally, he did not require her validation.

_But he had wanted it._

It had not been something he was ready to say, then, at that moment. It was not yet something he was ready to admit. It took a landmine underfoot to force him into action, and since that first explosion he merely been working at damage control, even as other landmines continued to explode periodically, pushing them closer and closer together, despite his best (or worst) intentions.

And so, he had decided, it was time to say plainly what it was that he meant.

He thought a letter would be the best way of telling her how he felt because he could keep himself disciplined and ordered and on point in a letter. There was the serious danger he would work himself up into a fit if he simply tried to talk things over with her, particularly if she tried to advance the situation before he was through saying what he thought he needed to say. He worried he might end up yelling at nothing, or perhaps the wall, simply because he was frustrated, everything was difficult, and he was really unsure what he ought to do with himself, although he had _some ideas_ of what he ought to do with her.

So he sat down at his desk with a clean sheet of letter writing paper in front of him and a fountain pen in his hand and waited as if inspiration might come like a muse descended from Mount Parnassus.

No muse arrived, and he was forced to move forward with only his own talents to rely on.

He struggled for some time over the opening salutation of the letter, as if these first words were the most difficult to write in the whole of human experience. Some words seemed far too formal for what he wanted to say, others seemed so informal that he couldn't even think them seriously in his head, let alone commit them to paper. He might have begun with a diminutive, but he was not really a man for diminutives. He had never commonly used them, except ironically, and even then not particularly often. Certainly he had never honestly called her by anything one might have considered a term of personal endearment.

Still, it seemed the most logical way to begin the letter. He believed that letters of this type always began in such a way, with a word of warm sentiment before he laid his intentions plain. It wasn't as if he didn't feel the sentiment. He felt it powerfully. It wasn't as if he didn't feel the warmth. If anything he worried he felt too much of it, and had begun to take wary detours around familiar habits and subjects, lest he give himself completely away.

He wrote the word 'darling' once, at the head of the page in his elegant sprawling handwriting, then sat staring at it dumbly, as if he had no way to connect either of them to the word. In the end, it was simply an empty platitude. He had nothing to call her, no sweet, easy words to share how it was that he felt. It all seemed terribly dishonest. She would read it and she would laugh (although not unkindly) and that would kill him, but who could blame her, for certainly he had never written a letter in his life that began with the word 'darling.' His feelings were tense, and difficult, and sometimes very nearly overpowering, and that word meant nothing to him. It was a casual word, throwaway syllables, like saying 'how do you do?' and not expecting any answer. He might have written a letter that said 'Darling, Buy some milk and eggs while you're out. - H. G.' like she went out to market with a gay scarf tied round her head and carried a wicker basket like Little Red Riding Hood, and they were always having the vicar at the big house for tea. That sort of preposterous note would have had a similar amount of feeling behind it - that is, none at all. It was a word meant for maudlin sentimental fiddle-faddle. He could not imagine how any idiot could write such a word and  _mean it_  with a straight face.

In his opinion, pleasantries were not pleasant at all, but instead were false and empty and worthless.

He burned the first letter, the one he had begun with the meaningless word, and then sat staring at the blank page for a second time, as if by mere will the words in his heart, that he had no way to put into any reasonable order, might appear beautifully and intelligibly on the page.

Of course, no one has as yet invented a spell that cuts out all the difficulties and agonies of human communication. There was no spell that could write the letter for him. He had to do it himself.

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. Perhaps it was best to give up on divine intervention.

There was one word he could use, one thing that he called her when he really meant for her to know how he felt.

It seemed terribly common, but it was the only word he had for such a situation.

At least it was an honest word, a word he meant with his heart and his hands.

He wrote

_Amoretta,_

It was the term of endearment he had to give her, the word that stood for all the things that she was in his life, what she had brought to him, what he had discovered about himself in her company. In his mouth, her name was like a candle in a dark room, something that brought close, private illumination, only great enough to be shared by the two of them. In the candlelight of her name, the shadows shifted around them, first one way, and then another, revealing the landscape of her heart, of his intentions, and he began to have some understanding of her unplumbed depth, of her capacity to accept  _anything_ he gave to her. It was one of the most terrifying things about her, as if she could swallow him whole and leave not a trace of his being behind. In the candlelight of her name, he invited her close to him, admitted his weaknesses, and accepted her judgement.

And having written that one word, the rest of it came into focus slowly, like statuary freed from old stone.

_Lately I've felt like I'm standing at a crossroads, where four roads meet near a weathered and illegible road sign. The road ahead seems to stretch on for miles, but no matter what direction I choose and no matter how many hours I walk, I always find myself standing again at that crossroads, near the illegible road sign._

_I've been going in circles around you, trying to avoid changing what I know must change between us. I suppose the thing that I am most terrified of is that you will leave me._

He paused for a moment, but then continued.

 _That isn't true in the least. What I'm most terrified of is that you will_ not  _leave me, and I will be forced to change, that we will both change. You've given me shelter, an inviolate place to lay down the heavy thoughts that I've carried for years, if only for a few moments at a time. I know it is obscenely selfish of me to wish to freeze this moment, these feelings, and keep them in a bottle, to be taken, twice a day, when the need arises, like aspirin. With you I've had more peace than I've had in years, which is absurd, considering how common calamities are when I'm with you._

_But no matter how cowardly I may be, I realize that I can't keep leading us in circles. If I do, eventually everything will reach a breaking strain and shatter into pieces perhaps impossible to put back together. I asked you for time, and I have had time. What I have come to realize over the course of the last few weeks is that no amount of time will ever satisfy me. If I wait until I am ready, then I will never be ready, and I will keep pushing you away from me until you become too tired to resist being repelled. I would rather spare us both from ending up like Tantalus. Life is too long to spend it waiting for some arbitrary sign that will never come, just as it is too short to squander wastefully._

_What I mean to say plainly is that I have reconsidered my position in regards to the law of the state of Vermont._

_At this point, the decision as to where and when and how quickly, if at all, rests in your hands. Forgive me if my writing this to you in a letter seems absurd, but it seemed to me the best way to say what it was that I meant. I'll be waiting for your answer, no matter what it may be, in the usual place._

_I would tell you to take your time to consider your answer carefully, but I know for a fact that it would be wasted advice._

_You will do what you feel is right in your heart, and I will abide by your decision._

_Just know that once these things change, there will be no going back. You wouldn't be able to find the way, even if you were desperate to do so._

_I cannot find the way now._

_I love you._

_\- H. G._

* * *

When Amoretta finally came trundling up the stairs to their bedroom on the second floor, it was actually past ten thirty. It wasn't much past ten thirty - by the clock in the hall it was ten forty five, but the fact that it was a minute past ten thirty meant that she expected to hear about it when she opened the door to their rooms and was confronted by her disciplinarian husband. She had only had leave to be out past curfew until ten thirty, after all, and she had just last evening made the promise to him that she would take it easy for the remainder of the term.

But as always, she had felt she had to be the last to leave, and after every last thing had been put away, and all the other students shooed off to their own dormitories, she and Minnie had packed their cookies away in the pantry, and then turned off the lights in the kitchens.

They parted ways on the first floor of the main building, Minnie departing down the hallway toward the girls' dormitories, with a promise to meet early the next morning to arrange the sale.

As Amoretta prepared to climb the stairs to the second floor, she noticed from a glimmer under the door that the light was on in the accounting room, which was very unusual so late at night. Probably someone had left it on when they had been in earlier. Amoretta might have paused to unlock the door and turn off the light if she hadn't already been so late to meet Grabiner upstairs.

 _I'm sure it can wait until morning,_ she thought as she climbed the stairs toward the quiet second floor hallway.

But of course, upon entering their quarters she was surprised to find that her husband was not there, despite how anxious he had been that she not stay out past the appointed time.

"I see he's good enough to make the rules, just not to keep them," she observed with amusement to the open air, and then set about taking off her kerchief and letting down her hair.

She was just about to begin preparing for bed when she noticed that there was something taped to the bathroom door.

It was an envelope with her name scrawled across it in very familiar script.

 _A letter,_ she thought to herself as she pulled it down from the door.

_It's a letter._

It was quite a letter, and although she had begun reading standing by the bathroom door, by the time she finished it she had had to go and sit down in the desk chair.

It was the best letter she could ever imagine getting. It was much better than finding out she had won the publisher's clearinghouse sweepstakes.

It was all the stars aligning. It was all the threads of their lives coming together. The world had become a perfect place.

If she hadn't been recovering from an injury, she might have tried to turn an enthusiastic cartwheel right there in the bedroom. It was probably good that she didn't try, since her cartwheels had never been particularly impressive, and she hadn't actually done one in months.

She was delighted, burning up with joy and excitement from the thrill of  _possibilities_ , and she was also a little terrified, but it was a wonderful kind of terrified, like the anticipation of leaping into a cold swimming pool on a hot summer day.

She was ready to throw herself headlong into the unknown. She had been ready for a long time, she thought.

_The usual place._

That could only mean one place in all of the world.

_I'll see you there. I'll be waiting._

Now she understood why the light in the accounting room had been on.

She closed and locked the door to their rooms again and headed quietly back down stairs.

* * *

Using her little key, she unlocked the door of the accounting room and closed it behind her. Grabiner was sitting at the small table, in the spot he always favored. His eyes were downcast, focused on the book in front of him. He was clearly passing the time by reading.

It was such a familiar picture that it might have been one from months before, when she had first come into this room and met him to discuss her campaign.

He didn't look up as she entered, and so she crossed the space toward the table and put the little bag of cookies she had saved for him down next to his book.

He glanced sidelong at them, guessed what they were and politely thanked her, but otherwise said nothing, and did not look up at her.

"I got your letter," she said shyly, by way of greeting.

"Did you?" he asked idly, still not looking up from his book.

"I did," she repeated herself, feeling very silly.

For a clandestine meeting, she thought he was being very round-about.

"Your verdict?" he asked mildly. "Although your presence here gives some indication of your stance, I am unwilling to take anything for granted."

Amoretta put her hands on her hips.

"My verdict is 'it's about time,'" she said with some exasperation, but then she laughed. "But why on earth did you ask me to meet you in the accounting room?" she asked. "We have our own quarters."

"A sense of the fitness of things," he answered thoughtfully, his eyes patiently on the pages in front of him. "And I suppose because it's neutral ground." He paused. "Besides," he said evenly. "This is the very first place I ever wanted to kiss you."

Her cheeks went pink and her ears burned. She wasn't used to him being so plain spoken, but then, she had read the letter. What had she expected?

She found her voice with a little difficulty, and it squeaked a bit when it came out.

"And when was that?" she asked.

"That is a state secret, Mrs. Grabiner," he said seriously. He still had not yet looked up from his book, as if it were utterly fascinating.

" _Hieronymous_ ," Amoretta laughed, suddenly put at ease again. "I suppose this is where I'm supposed to say, 'You're incorrigible!' or something, isn't it? Well, I never get a chance to say things like that, so I'm going to, now that I have the chance." She took a deep breath and then said,  _"You're incorrigible!_ "

At last he looked up at her and she could see that there was a smile at the corner of his mouth, and although small, it wasn't a brief and fleeting thing.  _He was pleased._

"I suppose you've come to your decision?" Grabiner asked as he closed his book and slowly stood.

"I have," she said with certainty that half truth and half bravado. She  _was_ certain. She was  _certain_ that she was certain, but that didn't keep her from being nervous, from being  _thrilled_ , from being  _nearly delirious_. She could feel the blood hammering in her temples. She thought she could smell copper.

He moved past her and let his fingers move absently over the door in a complex pattern. It was a locking spell with dozens and dozens of pins. She had never seen one so complicated. She trembled with suppressed anticipation.

 _He locked the door. He locked the door. He locked the door,_  she thought to herself.

This time the common gesture had new meaning.

"I have to warn you - " he said seriously as he advanced on her deliberately.

She tapped her foot lightly against the ground to cut him off.

"I don't want you to warn me," she insisted. "I've been warned enough! I'm tired of being warned! My decision is and always has been, from the very beginning,  _to the hilt_ ," she finished with some fire. Then she smiled. "Besides, you already know my position on the laws of the state of Vermont," she said.

"You're a criminal," he observed candidly.

"You're the one with a sixteen year old wife," she retorted. "Anyway," she said, "That law is silly. There really ought to be laws protecting you from me, and not the other way around."

"You are the most wicked creature I have ever met," he said with some certainty, although this statement was perhaps not entirely true.

"I am," Amoretta agreed happily. "I'm wicked, and I'm nice, which is the best possible combination, I think." She paused and her smile became wistful. "And I'm not afraid of the future anymore. You've given me that, you know. I love you more than anyone or anything else in the world, and I have for a very long time."

"You'd go skydiving without a parachute," Grabiner said in affectionate exasperation. "And not because you're a daredevil, but simply because you're so  _ready_ that you wouldn't wait even for a moment, not even to shrug on a pack."

"I've waited  _lots_ of moments," Amoretta protested, and she pushed her lower lip forward in what was perhaps a pout. "It's just that I'm not silly enough to think that there's always something to be gained by waiting. Sometimes it's good to wait and think things through carefully, and sometimes it's not, but there isn't anything inherently noble and virtuous about waiting, no matter what you're waiting for. You can wait anything into the grave, after all," she said with a cocked head and wry smile. "I was waiting for you to be ready, but now you are, or so you've told me, so I am too. It's all worked out pretty well, I think," she finished, looking rather pleased with herself.

"I want to kiss you," he said seriously.

"Well then," she said with a rosy flush, "Maybe you ought to try it."

They were standing very close together now, and he raised his hand so that his fingertips brushed the underside of her jaw very delicately.

"I don't want to kiss you once," he said quietly. "I want to kiss you from now on, as often as you'll let me, no matter who may be watching."

It was her turn to look a little exasperated as she rolled her eyes and laughed. "And you call  _me_ silly. You're the idiot who can't imagine that I want the same thing."

And then Amoretta stretched up on her toes and put her arms around his neck, and Grabiner, although startled, was not so startled that he did not bend down to accommodate her. Amoretta didn't have any practical experience in how these things worked, mechanically speaking, but she did have some  _ideas_ and the ready willingness to try all sorts of things until she was successful.

If Grabiner had spent the evening obsessing over how such a scene between the two of them might have played out, he had never once considered that his petite wife might have stolen all the thunder of the situation by kissing  _him_ first. But very quickly he discovered, or rather rediscovered, that once two people begin kissing one another, soon enough it doesn't matter at all which of them bears the accolade of having actually started it.

When she had put her arms around his neck he had bent down to meet her, and as he had moved his hand up the back of her neck, across the warm, downy nape, to cup the underside of her skull, he found that her mouth was already a little open, and that the intrepid little monster had  _licked_ his bottom lip tentatively, as if he were a flavor of ice cream she was trying to decide if she liked it or not.

Well, that was the end of that.

 _Goodnight Irene,_  she might have said.

For Amoretta, it was as if she had been standing at the precipice of a steep cliff, curiously prodding at a boulder that seemed impossibly balanced on a much smaller stone. After one gentle push, her enthusiastic investigation captured the attention of an unavoidable force: gravity, and the boulder came rolling down on top of her. But Amoretta was luckier than a horseshoe made of four leaf clovers, so she wasn't crushed, only  _thrilled_ , and ran down the mountainside whooping, the boulder crashing down with sound and fury in her wake.

That first kiss began messy and exuberant, as unsteady as a foal learning to walk, but as it gained momentum it also gained form and structure, because although one of the participants had no real ideas of how one ought to go about kissing another person, other than _with enthusiasm_ , fortunately the other participant was somewhat more experienced, although it had been a very long time since he had kissed anyone.

A very long time.

It the end it wasn't really clear at all which of them had been kissed, which of them _was being_  kissed, but Amoretta leaned in when he pulled her close to him, one hand in the small of her back. He felt warm and solid, as immovable as the earth itself, and she head swam as she experienced a rush of endorphins as she felt his tongue running around the inside of her lower teeth, slowly and deliberately.

Grabiner was just considering whether or not he ought to pick her up and deposit her on top of the table she was so fond of sitting on, when he heard a low, dry chuckle that made him move reflexively, putting his hands abruptly on her shoulder and her arm and pushing her down so hard that she had no choice but to let go of his neck. If she had been made of rubber she might have bounced when she landed back on her heels, so unexpected and forceful was his disengagement.

"Well now," said Petunia Potsdam, as if it were perfectly normal and customary for her to be visiting the accounting room at nearly eleven-thirty at night. "You two do seem to be _judiciously occupied._ "

There was one person on the entire campus who might have unlocked the door after he had locked it himself, and that was precisely the person who had unlocked it.

Grabiner stared at Potsdam incredulously for one slow moment, and she looked back at him as serene and pleased as a tiger who has just eaten a peacock. Then, as it became clear that she was ready to stand there observing them until the moon dipped below the horizon, he dropped his hands to his sides and frowned, his eyes narrowed. Then he cleared his throat and pushed past her to the door.

"Goodnight, headmistress," he said brusquely, and then left without another word.

As the door swung closed behind him, Amoretta could just hear his footsteps receding up the stairs. Petunia Potsdam had stepped back graciously as Grabiner had pressed forward and now she stood near the door, with her hands folded very prettily over her chest, and watched Amoretta appraisingly, her eyes half closed.

As she watched Grabiner go, Amoretta felt very disoriented. She was still feeling elated from the change in her brain chemistry, but her mind was also processing the fact that the object of her affections had just left the room without saying a thing to her, apparently never to return. As her eyes swept from the closed door to the headmistress, back and forth, as if she was practicing a form of autohypnosis, at last Amoretta came to herself enough to stamp her foot sharply against the stone of the floor.

It was as if she had broken an enchantment on herself, and suddenly the reality of the situation became inescapable.

"What did you do that for?" Amoretta demanded, turning all her frustration on Petunia Potsdam, who still stood idly by the door.

"Do what, darling?" the headmistress asked, feigning curiosity.  _As if she didn't know._

" _Make him leave_ ," Amoretta answered angrily, throwing her hands in the air.

"I didn't make him do anything, my dainty damson," the headmistress answered pleasantly. "He left all on his own."

Now to Amoretta, this statement seemed to be patently false, and this caused her to be in a very poor temper, as her exciting, splendid, marvelous moment had been  _ruined_ , and the ruiner was standing right in front of her, looking calm and sweet and unworried.

She stamped her foot again.

"You did  _so_ make him leave," she insisted. "Everything was going fine, no," she stamped her foot again, like a seven year old princess ready to throw a royal tantrum, "It was going  _wonderfully_ , and then you showed up and he left. He had _locked the door._  You almost never even come in here.  _Don't try to tell me that that wasn't calculated."_

"All right," the headmistress answered mildly. "I won't."

"Well, why on earth did you do it?" asked Amoretta in extreme confusion, her anger giving way to frustration and tears.

Petunia Potsdam cocked her head slightly to the side and smiled a smile that Amoretta found to be deeply upsetting and weirdly inappropriate at that moment.

"Think about it carefully, lambkin," she advised. "And perhaps you will understand  _why_." And then she turned on her heel, looking briefly over her shoulder to say, "Good night, cherub, and sweet dreams."

And then she left Amoretta quite alone, as if her only purpose in coming downstairs that night had been to break in upon them, mess everything up, and leave them both upset (which it obviously had been).

After she had gone, Amoretta lost all ability to control her rioting emotions and sat down in the chair Grabiner had pulled away from the table and cried very earnestly for nearly half an hour. As she sat and sobbed, feeling rotten and very sorry for herself, she took comfort in the bag of cookies she had brought with her, and before she had quite realized it she had eaten all five of them, and the table in front of her was covered in crumbs.

She sniffled as she laid her cheek against the table, her hands resting on the book he had left forgotten when he had abruptly departed.

It was a volume of poetry by John Donne.

At last, after she had cried herself quite out, and eaten every last morsel of the cookies, she could do nothing else but collect the book and lock up the Accounting Room behind her, turning off the light as if she were turning off the hope in her heart, because surely now everything was ruined.

She was still sniffling intermittently as she slowly climbed the stairs to their room, dreading the reception she would receive when she got there. Would it be stony silence? Would it be abject refusal? She was sure it could not now be like it had been before. He had written that that was so in his letter, the one she had folded in between the leaves of Donne and now carried against her chest.

She stood for several minutes dolefully staring at the blank face of the door to their rooms, wondering if she ought to knock. What had been her home for weeks now seemed like a strange land. She was not sure he would want her to invade his privacy.

But then, she had nowhere else to go.

Sighing heavily, at last she knocked tentatively.

It was a moment or two before the door was answered, and he seemed honestly baffled to see her standing there.

 _I was right,_ she thought to herself, feeling very low and pitiful.  _He doesn't want me anymore._

The thought was too much for her frayed nerves to bear, and she began to sob earnestly again, as he stood in the open door and stared at her.

As if he feared who might be summoned by her noisily sobbing in the hallway, Grabiner hustled her into the room and closed the door behind them. Amoretta stood where he had left her, hugging the volume of Donne like it might have been a beloved teddy bear, and crying quite unapologetically. She was sure he was going to be angry with her. If he wasn't going to be angry, then he was going to be cold. If he wasn't going to be cold, then he was going to be dismissive. Everything was  _awful_. She was determined to simply cry until she expired on the spot.

"Amoretta," Grabiner began, and he seemed more confused than anything. "Amoretta, why are you crying?"

And then it all came pouring out.

"Because you hate me," she sobbed, "And because you don't like me anymore." Apparently these constituted two separate grievances for her. "Everything was so nice, and I've tried so hard and been so good and it was all wonderful and now, and now you hate me." She paused as the paper bag she held against Donne crinkled under her arms. "And I even went and ate all the cookies I made for you. I'm awful and you  _should_  hate me."

Amoretta expected him to yell at her, as she deserved, or to give her a cutting remark, or perhaps simply to throw her out of the room, but he did none of these things.

Instead he covered his eyes with one of his hands and he began to laugh helplessly.

In fact, Grabiner laughed so long and so freely that at last he had to sit down in his desk chair and hold his head in his hands to keep himself from crying. Amoretta watched this display in horrified fascination.

This was it then. She had finally pushed him so far that he had lost his mind. Now he would chop her up or throw her down a well, finally fulfilling all of Raven Darkstar's wistful fantasies.

But when he approached her, it did not seem to be with murderous intent. He wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and shook his head slightly, as if he were still coming to terms with the strangeness of her answer. Then he pulled a handkerchief from one of his pockets and wiped her eyes, and then her cheek, taking the volume of Donne from her and putting it safely on the corner of the desk.

"You have chocolate on your face," he said, still riding the parting giddiness of his laughing fit. He shook his head again as he put his hand underneath her chin and tilted her face up. "Amoretta, I'm not angry. I can't even imagine what gave you that idea," he said shortly, and then waved one of his hands as if the reason were irrelevant to him anyhow. "When it became clear to me that  _that woman_  had no intentions of leaving us in peace, I knew there was no reason to stay down there on display, like a cake on a pedestal, so I left. I imagined you would be right behind me. When you didn't come, I assumed you were speaking with the headmistress." He paused and shook his head as if he still found the entire situation to be utterly unbelievable. "I never imagined that you were downstairs crying all this time. That's what you have been doing, isn't it?" he asked her earnestly.

Amoretta sniffled as she nodded.

And then something extraordinary happened.

Grabiner stepped forward and pulled her into his arms, holding her with the artless simplicity that comes from honesty and stroking her hair soothingly.

"I'm sorry I left you there all alone," he said, his voice low and even. "I never meant to make you feel abandoned. I suppose I should have just kept hold of your hand and dragged you off after me, but it simply didn't occur to me at the time." He sighed. "All this has really done is make me certain of something that I've been turning over in my head for some time." He pushed her away from him just far enough so that he could look down into her face. "We've got to get away from here for awhile." He shook his head, frowning. "That woman is never going to give us any peace. She's always underfoot. She's always peeking around the corner. She's always hiding behind the curtains in the corner of the room, and frankly, I am tired of it. All of this is difficult enough without her always muddling about in the middle of it."

Amoretta, still trying to sort everything he had said to her out, asked in confusion, "You want to leave Iris Academy?"

"For the summer," he answered with the easy confidence of a man who has finally come to a certain decision. "After the close of the term."

"But where will we go?" she asked, troubled. She really had no idea.

"I'm opening Revane Cottage," he said simply, as if the solution were obvious.

"And we'll live there?" she asked, and he took pleasure in the look of amazement that gilded her face like the light of dawn after a long, hopeless night. "All summer?" she prompted and he nodded. "Together?" he nodded. " _Alone_?" she asked, her heart skipping a beat.

"I'm damn well not inviting the headmistress," Grabiner laughed, and it was an easy laugh, not a dry one, not a bitter, hard one. It was the simple, easy laugh of pleasure, and of satisfaction that things are turning out well.

But then a cloud passed across the sun and she was troubled again. "But Revane Cottage," she said. "Your father gave that to us as a wedding present, didn't he? I mean, he didn't really understand the circumstances, but he gave it to us anyway, and now I suppose it's perfectly fine if we use it, I mean it is ours and all, only, I wonder - " she finally paused to take a breath and then shyly, awkwardly worded the thing she had really been trying to say. "I wonder, is it all right with  _you_ that we use it, Hieronymous," she said, and it was half question and half not question. She didn't want to destroy her chance of spending an idyllic summer vacation with him in a sweet little cottage now that he had offered it to her like a golden apple, but she didn't want to put him in a difficult position on her account. "I know you don't get along with your father, and I don't want to force you into anything that will make you unhappy - "

He lifted a finger and pressed it with some certainty against her upper lip.

"You know," he said idly. "You're really ridiculously attractive when you're worried about me."

She answered him even with his finger on her lips, and he could feel her warm breath on his fingertip.

"Then I must be ridiculously attractive basically all of the time," she said with a slight frown. "Don't dodge the question, Hieronymous."

"All right," he said levelly, dropping his fingertip from her lips. "I won't dodge the question. No, Mrs. Grabiner, I am not particularly fond of my father, but I don't hate him so much that I'm willing to totally disregard his generosity, particularly when it is convenient, however undeserving of it my lack of filial piety makes me." He waved his hand lightly in the air again, as if he were requesting her official judgement on his case. "In any case, that property now belongs to us, and as far as I'm concerned that is the end of the matter. I am not interested in who it might have belonged to in the past."

"You're sure you won't be upset?" she asked nervously, pulling both of her hands up to her chest to tug on the edge of his cloak. "I mean, I promise I won't be disappointed if we just stay here for the summer. I mean, of course I'd like to go and live some place nice with you, but not if it's too much trouble. I won't mind staying here for the summer. After all, it would be easier to stay - "

"I'd rather be roasted over an open fire than spend the summer being spied upon by that Cheshire cat," Grabiner said, his customary acidic humor returning. "I'm already resolved. I'm opening Revane Cottage and we're going to stay there once the term is out, as soon as things can be arranged."

"Is it a nice cottage?" Amoretta asked despite herself, "I mean, does it have a little garden, and vines growing up over it and all of that?"

"I am sure it will satisfy all your Brothers Grimm fantasies," he answered dryly. "It is very picturesque."

"How absolutely splendid!" she said, because that was how she felt at that moment, but then she came to a full stop again. "But what about Ellen?" she cried out, "I can't run off and leave Ellen at school all alone. We promised we'd spend the summer together. It'd be really rotten of me."

"You won't be very far away," he said, feeling very satisfied at his solution, since he had already thought of this complaint as well. "Near enough that she can visit every afternoon if she takes a fancy to it, and provided you two actually behave yourselves you can have her up to stay for the weekend as often as you like."

"You mean to tell me that Revane Cottage is some place close by?" Amoretta asked incredulously.

"You'll see," was all Grabiner would say in response to that question, no matter how much she prodded him, and so she had to accept his answer.

"I really am very happy," Amoretta said with a relieved smile, and it was as if her earlier fears had been carried away by the wind. "To think that I'll get to spend the summer with you someplace wonderful - " she paused as a new question assailed her. "Is it thatched? I've always wanted to live someplace thatched."

"It's not thatched," Grabiner said with an exasperated laugh at the girl in his arms who had such strange ideas about the world, mostly derived, as far as he could tell, from books and television. "It's stone and plaster, with a shingled roof, but I promise you that it has painted shutters and fireplaces that take up the whole damn wall and exposed wooden beams in the ceiling. You'll be satisfied, on my honor."

"I really don't even care," she laughed again. "I'd go live with you in Cleveland if I had to."

"That's not very flattering to Cleveland," he said with a raised eyebrow.

"Cleveland isn't a very flattering place," she advised him seriously, then bit her lip. "If you're absolutely  _sure_ \- " she worried.

"I am absolutely positive," Grabiner said with dry certainty. "You couldn't change my mind if you tried." He paused, and then conceded. "Well, perhaps if you tried  _very hard_  - "

"I don't want to change your mind," she laughed, because her cup  _overflowed_. She was going to spend the summer with Grabiner someplace wonderful and interesting and best of all  _private_. She thought it was much better than winning the lottery. She paused seriously and looked up at him with dark eyes. "Hieronymous," she asked incredulously. "Are you flirting with me?"

Grabiner raised both his eyebrows and Napoleon himself couldn't have looked more self-satisfied.

"Yes," he said definitively. "That is what I am doing."

"Well, you ought to do it more often," Amoretta answered with a shy smile. "I like it."

"I think you'll find I don't need much encouragement," he said.

"Maybe you ought to kiss me again," Amoretta suggested tentatively, feeling strangely embarrassed talking about it, although she had not been in the least embarrassed  _doing_ it.

"No," Grabiner answered crisply, and Amoretta's heart fell.

But then he continued.

"I haven't kissed you yet," he said, "But I'm planning on it."


	17. Fifteen: Confidence in Fools

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have great faith in fools; self-confidence, my friends call it.
> 
> \-- Edgar Allen Poe

Saturday morning, before the prospective bake sale was slated to commence, Amoretta busied herself with the familiar task of sorting and delivering the freshman class' mail. There was quite a lot of it, as it was one of the final regular mail days of the school year.

There were many packages to deliver: study aids and snacks sent by parents, last minute additions to dance wardrobes, boxes with shoes, boxes with books, and to Virginia Danson: a care package filled with homemade cookies (smaller packages had been sent to both William and Donald). All of these packages had to be delivered along with the customary letters, magazines, and catalogues.

Generally the packages were very normally shaped, except for one, which looked like it might have been a very large stringed instrument quite clumsily wrapped. It even twanged when Amoretta picked it up. Amoretta was unsurprised to find that the recipient was one Barbara Solmoro. The self-proclaimed ninja had been the recipient of all the weirdest packages during the school year, and Amoretta was by now accustomed to leaving all manner of things outside her door. Last month it had been a pitchfork adorned with a large red ribbon.

_Mazel tov_ , Amoretta had thought, as she stood, surveying the fine work of her mail delivery.

The size of the not-so-much-mysterious-as-dubious, too-big-to-be-a-sitar package necessitated a second trip to Snake Hall, as Amoretta could not carry it at the same time as the rest of the mail for the violet-caped girls. Fortunately, although the package was large and ungainly, it wasn't particularly heavy, and Amoretta found she could manage it without calling for extra assistance.

She had successfully carried it all the way into Snake Hall and was preparing to deposit it in front of Barbara and Suki's door when the door in front of her was flung open with the force of a tornado. There in the doorway stood Barbara Solmoro, looking utterly unruffled and blasé, as if she had not just thrown open the door with enough force to cause Amoretta's hair to fly back with the generated air current.

"Oh, it's my package," she said as if she wasn't particularly interested.

Amoretta opened her mouth, and then closed her mouth again. With Barbara, it was better not to ask.

Barbara held her arms out for her package. Inside the room, Amoretta could just hear a sleepy Suki wondering out loud.

"Barbara, who is it - "

"It's Herbert Hoover," Barbara answered flatly, her eyes shifting briefly sidelong in the direction of Suki's bed. Apparently this was a good enough answer for Suki, because there was the sound of rustling as she rolled over again, intent on going back to sleep. Barbara's eyes shifted back to Amoretta. She still patiently held her arms out.

Amoretta gave over the weird bundle, and it twanged as she did. Barbara shifted the large package to one arm and laid a finger to her lips, looking first one way down the corridor, and then the other. Then she nodded, apparently satisfied.

"You may go," she said, and then without another word she had vanished back into her room as suddenly as she had appeared, closing and latching the door behind her with nary a whisper.

Amoretta let out a confused sigh and threw up her hands. Such was her life at Iris Academy.

And of course, that got her to thinking. Soon enough it  _wouldn't_ be her life at Iris Academy, because she would be spending the summer away from school at Revane Cottage.

With Hieronymous Grabiner.

She felt very warm and very pleased with herself, and it showed in her rosy cheeks as she nearly  _skipped_ back toward the main building.

* * *

Amoretta went back to the accounting room after she had delivered Barbara's strange, stringed package, because that was where she was supposed to meet Minnie to begin arranging the particulars of their bake sale. They had to bring a table out to the quad, and the cashbox, decorate a tablecloth, and make some signs.

But when she returned to the accounting room, there was something waiting for her that had not been there when she left. It was a pale blue envelope made of heavy paper. Her name was written across it quite beautifully in long, flowing letters. Amoretta recognized the handwriting at once.

It was from Damien Ramsey.

She sat down hard in the of the chairs near the table and thought about what she ought to do with the letter. Petunia Potsdam had told her that it was probably advisable to read the letters Damien sent to her, so she could have some idea of what he planned to do. Grabiner had told her that reading Damien's letters was stupid and foolish, that she could get no good out of them, that by reading them, she would be giving Damien what he wanted: some influence over her decisions, some control - however tenuous - over her life. They were both valid positions, she thought. Reading Damien's last letter had certainly caused her a great deal of personal distress, but it had also revealed the truth of his intentions, which had troubled her deeply for some time. Although reading his thoughts in his own words was upsetting, it also gave her insight into his mindset, something she could not gain through second-hand information. She would never really begin to understand Damien Ramsey, to understand what it was that he wanted from her, and how she could possibly move to deal with him, if she hid from his letters like a terrified child. That would have been giving him control over her life too, she thought. It was a thought that would likely have not pleased Grabiner, had he heard it.

_Forewarned is forearmed,_  she thought, and taking a deep breath, she slit the letter open and commenced to read it.

_My own, the rarest treasure of my heart,_  it read.

_Things have been progressing well for me here, although of course they would progress better if I had the pleasure of having you by my side. At the moment, the situation remains too precarious for me to collect you and install you in your proper station. After all, a delicate flower has no place on the battlefield. My enemies have learned the hard lesson that the seed of Balam runs true, hot and fierce and terrible, and I have taught it to them in blood. I am, in my own way, keeping the city's funerary services in good business. Let no one say that I have not been good for my city's economy. I am a gentle and enlightened despot._

_But enough of such gory and boring subjects as politics and murder. Surely there are other things fluttering about in your school girl's heart. Final examinations are nearly upon you, and then of course, the May Day ball. I'm sure you have a pretty little dress already, such as might be available in a New Hampshire shopping mall, and you'll put up your hair, and put on your corsage of hothouse carnations and you'll be quite the quaint and delicious little picture. I am half-tempted to leave my campaign for an evening just to remind myself of how you look, so fresh-faced and rosy and naive. Your heart is racing now, isn't it, with the thought that I might actually come to the ball? You think it's racing with terror, but there's a little bit of doubt in your heart, isn't there? Perhaps it's not terror. Perhaps it's excitement. Perhaps it's pleasure. All terror has at least a little bit of pleasure in it: the pleasure of anticipation, the pleasure of being obliviated and devoured._

_I may well come to see you, Helen, and bring you the golden apples of my kingdom. I am closer now than you think. I am always close to you, my darling, because I carry you over my heart. No matter where you go, no matter where you hide, you cannot hide from me. You can never hide from me._

My hand will always be on your shoulder.

_All my love and a thousand kisses,_

_Damien Ramsey Balam_

Reading Damien's letters always left her feeling clammy and uncomfortable, as if he had had his hands on her, and that those hands had left stains that could be seen by other people through her clothing. She felt mildly ill, but not as sick as she had after the first letter, and while her shoulder hurt enough for her to cover it with her hand, it did not hurt so much that it drove out all other thoughts.

Rubbing the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead, she got to her feet, determined to tell the relevant authority figures about this most recent letter. If Damien really did intend to return to campus for the May Day ball, if there was the slightest chance that he might attempt it at all, then the headmistress ought to know. Otherwise, she certainly had to tell Grabiner about the letter. She doubted it would improve his mood, but if she didn't tell him about it, he would certainly hear about it from Petunia Potsdam, and then it would seem as if Amoretta had been trying to keep it from him on purpose, and that would likely cause an explosion. It wasn't as if he didn't think she had a right to decide things for herself, it was more that he was preoccupied with the worry that she would choose to do something without thinking it through carefully enough and end up hurt, perhaps badly. He had taken an oath to protect her, and he took his responsibilities seriously.

Professor Potsdam first, she thought. Then Grabiner, who would surely berate her, but then quiet and comfort her. At times like this she needed something to lean on.

* * *

Despite the unexpected arrival of the letter from her less than desirable second husband, the bake sale in the quadrangle was a splendid success and the freshman class made quite enough money to make a suitable contribution to the May Day ball fund. Grabiner appeared early on at the sale and purchased a bag of cookies to replace the ones Amoretta had eaten in her fit of pique the evening previous. She had flushed a little as he had departed, and Minnie had covered her mouth with her hands as she tittered to herself, because Amoretta had already confessed to the president that she had eaten Grabiner's first batch of cookies during an unnecessary crying jag. Grabiner might not have liked the fact that his wife shared her personal business with the girl who had likely set the rumor of their marriage on fire in the first place, but then again, he might not have cared at all.

He was, after all, already busy arranging things for the summer, and he made no secret of it.

Although things had developed very promisingly during their second kiss, once it had been concluded, Grabiner abruptly ordered her to bed, and not in the way she might have hoped. She had exhausted herself with baking and then crying, and it was his responsibility to see that she recovered, rather than relapsed. This is what he told her, at least, and before she could even rightly protest she found herself forced into the shower and then dumped unceremoniously into her bed.

Now that he had decided upon a course of action, he had quite a lot of things to do, and this meant he would have to be up desperately early in the morning (and she, by proxy, would have to be up as well). In fact, he would be so busy that he more or less put a moratorium on any prolonged physical contact between the two of them until the school year was finished. There just wasn't time, he insisted.

Once the summer break began they could take their time going about things. Grabiner was determined to be as deliberate about this as he was about most things, and while Amoretta was not particularly enthusiastic about waiting  _yet more time_ , the fact that the end of the term was veritably upon them left her with some small consolation.

Meanwhile, Grabiner had already informed the headmistress of his intention to take a leave during the summer holiday, and she had granted it without much concern, saying only, "I'll just have Rail stay on as chaperon when I'm away."

Apart from early in the morning and late at night, Amoretta didn't actually see much of Grabiner for the next several days. She was still forbidden from blue magic classes, and he seemed to spend every spare moment off campus. He left before breakfast, returned only in time to call his class to order, left again at lunch time, returned to teach the afternoon session, left again until after dinner, and then went to work in the dungeons until after ten o'clock.

He always seemed exhausted when he came in at the end of the day, but after the first night, when she met him at the door with a cheerful turned up face and a kiss, he had learned to take it well-enough in stride. Once he came in, it was straight to bed for the both of them, because another early morning loomed close on the horizon.

Amoretta could not help but find herself feeling lonely with Grabiner gone so often. Since their oath-taking in March they had been under one another's feet basically all of the time, and Amoretta had become accustomed to how comfortable Grabiner's presence made her. Even though she knew he wasn't particularly far away, even though she knew he was committed to coming back to her every night, even though she knew he was busy getting things in order so that they could really live with one another, she couldn't help but feel lonely. He wasn't there to comment on her notes, or to correct her form, or to give her supplemental lessons in the dungeons. He was too busy, and was likely to remain busy until the last of the examinations were completed, and perhaps afterward.

She wasn't really sure what all was entailed in opening up a house and getting it in order, as she had never done it herself.

He was very busy arranging things, and he refused to allow her to help him in any way.

"You are a student," he said, very gravely. "At least until you complete your examinations. Focus on being a student. I will not allow this to distract you from your studies."

And so she tried her best to do as he said and focus herself on being a student. There was little enough of the school year left, after all.

But sometimes, sometimes it was very difficult to study, given all that had happened, given all she had to think about.

In these strange, spare moments, sometimes Grabiner's absence turned out to be a blessing.

During one of these spells of brooding, Amoretta at last elected to write a letter that she had been putting off for some time. It would not be easy to write, but it was simply something that had to be done.

It was one of those situations where she couldn't have taken Grabiner's mind on the subject. She would have to struggle through it herself.

And so she wrote her letter.

* * *

With Grabiner busy, the time remaining before her own final examinations slipped away from her faster than she might have imagined, until they loomed ahead, the following day.

And here it was that they found they disagreed on a subject that they had both taken for granted as an unquestioned truth.

Amoretta wanted to take part in her final exam with Ellen and Virginia, to pass or fail like all the other freshman students, but Grabiner was adamant that she not be allowed to do so.

His reasoning was simple and his thoughts very clear, and he had no qualms about sharing them with her as many times as was necessary to get them through her thick skull.

She had been injured very badly during the course of the school year, so much so that it was only at his discretion that she was being allowed to finish out the term as a regular student. (He conveniently neglected to mention Petunia Potsdam in any of these discussions, as if she were a figure of no consequence in what was to him a private marital dispute, although in this case it was obvious to Amoretta that it was a matter of school business and record). Her continuing infirmity left her easily tired, unable to walk for long distances or stand for long periods of time, although after a month of rest she was back to producing the manic bursts of speed and energy that she was known for, the ones that now left her utterly exhausted afterwards. Her frailty also directly impacted the number of spells she could cast continuously in a chain, without resting. The final freshman examination was the most difficult examination of the year. It would require intelligence, finesse, and nerve. It would also require physical endurance and mental discipline. Amoretta, he declared, as in no condition to take the examination.

The final smoking gun he offered was perhaps the most effective deterrent for her: the final exam was a team exam. Unlike the other exams where she had passed or failed on her own merits, in this case she would be depending on the talents of Virginia and Ellen, and they in turn would be depending on her. If she tried to take an exam she wasn't in condition for out of pride, then she was consigning them to a failing score as well, as they could only complete the final objective of the examination together. If any one of them was not up to snuff, then they would all pay the penalty. Amoretta was not mean-spirited enough to condemn her two best friends to failure only to satisfy her personal pride, he told her. She might have been more moved by the sentiments of his argument if he hadn't seemed so  _self-satisfied_  when he said it. He knew he had her over a barrel, and was confident that she would come round to his way of thinking.

"But it isn't fair for me to just simply be excused from the final examination - " she had tried in protest.

But he was having none of it. "Oh, don't imagine you'll be excused. You'll take the demerits for not participating in the final exam, the same as if you'd failed it. You'll still be in good enough standing to be passed up. Even if you're not always studious," he fixed her with a critical eye, "One can scarcely ignore your determination and drive. I am not really in the habit of paying effusive compliments to students, so you had best listen well: your own  _numerous_ shortcomings aside, you are quite possibly the best student in blue magic I have had since I began teaching. That in itself would be enough to get you passed up to sophomore status, even if you otherwise couldn't even butter toast without accident. You're already nearly done with the sophomore curriculum, and you'll be well-finished with it before the summer is over, I imagine." He shook his head dismissively. "I know you've got your heart set on this exam for some reason or another, but you're just going to have to accept that I will not allow you to participate in it. You'll have plenty of lessons over the summer. Look forward to those."

Of course, when Grabiner told Amoretta to give up on taking the final exam and look forward to her summer lessons, it was like comparing apples and oranges. She really didn't see what the one had to do with the other. Of course she looked forward to the summer and all the new things she was bound to learn (spell-casting, and then in other more personal quarters) but that really had no bearing on the freshman final exam. The reason she wanted to take the exam wasn't pride, really, or maybe it was, and that was why it was important. Damien had taken a great deal from her, and presumed to take even more. The scars she carried on her body and on her heart had made many things during the spring term difficult or actually impossible to accomplish. In a great many ways it felt as if he still had his hands on her now, keeping her from doing the things she really and truly wanted to do.

But then, that's what he had said in his letter.

_My hand will always be on your shoulder._

Amoretta was determined to do things her own way, come hell or high water. Grabiner had complimented that determination, that drive, at the same time as he had known that it was the source of a great deal of his trouble. The truth of the matter was that he had already come to accept that  _trouble_ was an integral part of Amoretta's character, and the only way to ensure that he had a life free of such complications was to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But even though he had accepted her sometimes  _difficult_ nature, that didn't mean he was willing to sit back and watch her get herself hurt. He would put his foot down as many times as necessary, rile her up and make her furious as many times as necessary, act the tyrant as many times as necessary, provided it kept her from harm. On this one point he was totally immovable. It had become the point of gravity around which the rest of his life orbited.

He was as stubbornly committed to this duty as Amoretta was stubbornly committed to having her way, when she thought  _her_ way was the  _right_ way.

And this was a circumstance where she was utterly convinced that her way was the right way. Grabiner had plenty of good points, and she conceded that it was prudent to be cautious, but like the press conference before the student body, this was something she had to do  _for herself_ , even if that was selfish. She wasn't afraid of being selfish. It was a very human quality, after all.

And so she went a-visiting to discuss her options.

The first person she visited was Ellen, who had sequestered herself in the library for a last review session this final day before their exam. She found Ellen all alone at a study carrel, surrounded by a veritable wall of books: her own, the library's, and those she had borrowed from Grabiner's private collection. When Amoretta had pulled up a stool to sit down beside her, Ellen had put down her pencil.

"Feeling ready for the final?" she asked.

It was clear that she was anxious about the next day's exam, although Amoretta could not have named anyone in the freshman class that had a more versatile and diverse repertoire of spells than Ellen Middleton. She even had Minnie Cochran beaten. But Ellen was often anxious, and used obsessive preparation as a way to channel her nervous energy. At least she wasn't habitually unfolding and refolding her panties, which Amoretta had caught her at before one of the other exams.

Amoretta leaned her cheek against her palm.

"Well, I'm not really sure," she answered uncertainly.

Then she explained Grabiner's position briefly. Ellen was already familiar with Amoretta's position, because they had both spent some time thinking about how they might solve obstacles in the final exam as a team, since they had known from the beginning of the year that the final examination was a team examination.

Ellen was somewhat perplexed. "I do see where he's coming from," she admitted, and Amoretta nodded slowly. "But he really has no right to say you  _can't_ take the final exam if you  _want_ to take it. You're not too weak to stand on your own two feet and walk around, for awhile, at least. You've passed every other examination of the year," she looked sidelong at her pile of books and her voice was slightly petulant, "Which is more than I can say for myself."

The fact that Grabiner had refused her merits for the exam she had solved without magic still rankled her very deeply. She did not accept his position, and besides, he had ruined her perfect record.

Amoretta bit her lip. "It's just that I've been worrying that I'll be more of a hindrance to you than a help. I don't want to be the reason that both of you fail the exam."

Ellen shook her head and looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, the fact is that I've been counting on you being there. Dozens of possible strategies rely on having you with us. Your blue magic is really useful in combinations, and you have a dozen more white magic spells in your repertoire than I do." Ellen shrugged. "Really, even if you couldn't cast anything at all, you'd still be there as a warm body, so we can vote down whatever crazy schemes Virginia comes up with." Ellen paused and grimaced. "I have no idea what the final exam will be like, but I am willing to bet that Virginia's strategy will be to blow it up, no matter what it is. If we had to rescue a kitten from a tree, I'm sure Virginia would want to blow up the tree to get the kitten out of it."

Amoretta laughed awkwardly, because she suspected Ellen was correct, and sometimes when jokes ring true, they are uncomfortable. "Well, I guess we all play to our strengths. Virginia is just  _really good_  at blowing things up."

Ellen shrugged and then rolled her eyes meaningfully.

"I just wish she had some concept of collateral damage," she said with a sigh and a slump. Then she straightened, tilting her head slightly to the side as she regarded Amoretta carefully. "If you think you're up to taking the exam, then I'm going to support you fully. He shouldn't be able to fail you without giving you a chance to show what you can do. The examinations can be dangerous, but we are monitored all the time, and besides, Virginia and I will be there with you," she said with a small smile. "Take your own advice," Ellen suggested, "Play to your strengths. You chose what to study this year, and constructed your own personal magic. I'm sure you can pass this exam with your own strength, with your own magic."

She nodded resolutely as she finished, and it was as if she were giving herself a pep talk while she encouraged Amoretta to have confidence in herself.

Amoretta smiled at Ellen's show of solidarity, and then nodded herself.

She stood up from her stool and folded her arms inside her cape.

"All right then," she said. "I guess I'd better go see what Virginia says."

Ellen gave her a wry smile in response.

"We both know what Virginia will say," she laughed.

"I know," Amoretta admitted, "But I still have to ask."

* * *

"Grabby can stuff it!" Virginia announced with magnificent certainty.

She was spending the afternoon running through control drills with William in the quad. William, after having completed the senior examinations and having been formally graduated, had elected to stay on at school until the very end of the term, as many of the graduating seniors did. It gave him time to help his younger brother and sister prepare for their exams.

William laughed at the sureness of his sister's answer. She had not needed to think about it at all.

Amoretta smiled at Virginia's strong and unequivocal answer, but then shook her head slightly.

"Really Virginia," she said, "You ought to think about it a little. There's a chance that I could make us all fail the exam."

"So?" Virginia asked, putting her hands on her hips. "That won't keep any of us from being passed up to sophomores. We fail the test or we pass the test, I don't really care. I'm just interested in the  _experience_."

"Won't your parents be angry if you fail your final exam?" Amoretta worried, chewing on the tip of her index finger.

Virginia shrugged. "Nope," she said. "I've done really well this year, as far as they're concerned." She shook her head. "Look, Amoretta, I know what it's like to miss out on things because you're sick. It  _sucks_. So I think you've got to give it all you've got. It's not like you're unconscious and catatonic or something. You just get tired easily. So what?"

"But if I were stronger - " Amoretta started.

"You're plenty strong enough in my opinion," Virginia interrupted with a dismissive wave of her hand. "We're Horses," Virginia reminded. "Out for adventure. Never say die. All for one. Semper fi. Go talk to P.P. I betcha she'll be willing to go to the mat for you. You're basically her favorite freshman," Virginia stuck her tongue out.

She clearly thought being Petunia Potsdam's favorite was better than being Grabiner's favorite, but found neither to be particularly desirable.

With the solid encouragement of both of her friends, Amoretta felt confident enough to take the matter up with Petunia Potsdam herself.

* * *

She found that lady in one of her gardens, walking amid blooming flowers and carrying a parasol. She seemed very unconcerned for the headmistress of a school that was at the end of term. She was apparently in between giving examinations.

When Amoretta finally got out to the gardens, she had to sit down on her bottom and rest.

_Am I really ready for this?_ she wondered to herself.  _Maybe Hieronymous is right,_  she thought gloomily.

But Petunia Potsdam was apparently unwilling to allow a student to sit around her rose bushes thinking gloomy thoughts and spoiling her rest.

"What is it that you need, my dewdrop?" she asked pleasantly, coming to stand in front of Amoretta.

Amoretta took a deep breath and then simply blurted it all out.

"To take the final exam. Only Professor Grabiner says I oughtn't, because I'm not well enough, but I think I should. I mean, I went on taking exams after Kavus got ahold of me and all, and I already talked to Ellen and Virginia, and they're willing to let me be on their team even though it means we all might fail. I want to  _try_. I don't want to give up without trying."

The headmistress chuckled daintily into the back of her hand and twirled her parasol over her shoulder.

"Let me see if I have this right," she said. "You want to take your final exam. Hieronymous objects. Is that it?"

Amoretta bit her lip and nodded. "I understand he's just worried about me, and he says he's not making a special exception, but it sure  _seems_ like he is - "

"He prides himself on being unbiased," the headmistress said with a knowing smile. "Of course, you know and I know that in your case he can be quite  _heinously_ biased, and entirely unable to recognize it in himself." She swung the parasol off her shoulder and partially closed it, pointing it square at Amoretta's chest. "He does not want you to take the exam, and you wish to take the exam," she repeated, and Amoretta nodded again.

"Since when has Hieronymous's disapproval kept you from doing something you thought was necessary?" the headmistress asked.

"Well - " Amoretta began, unsure.

" _Never_ ," Petunia Potsdam supplied with another twirl of her parasol as she opened it and flipped it back over her shoulder. "Respect Hieronymous. Take his counsel. He is a powerful ally with a more than dependable intellect, and he is unquestionably devoted to you, but," she said, raising one finger. "He is hardly infallible. You must always make your own decisions, or face the consequences of having others make them for you. When one must sink or swim with the sharks, it is best to do so at one's own discretion."

"Then you'll let me take the final exam?" Amorett asked hopefully, getting to her feet.

The headmistress smiled her mysterious Cheshire smile.

"Naturally, my darling dewdrop. The final examination is a team exercise," she reminded. "If I had failed any one of you, then I would have failed all three of you. Now, at least, you have a fighting chance."

* * *

Although Amoretta had elected not to inform Grabiner of her decision to go forward with the final examination until it was absolutely necessary (in the best scenario, this would be after she had already completed it) he was naturally suspicious that she had given up the fight that had meant so much to her a few hours earlier. Amoretta had received her exam schedule the evening previous from the headmistress herself, and so around midday on the penultimate class day of the year, she went to the appointed classroom to wait for her exam to commence.

Naturally, Grabiner followed her.

She had expected that, really.

When Grabiner saw that Virginia, Ellen, and the headmistress were already waiting for Amoretta, his suspicions were confirmed, and he crossed his arms over his chest as he came to a halt and he frowned at each of them in turn.

"What is this?" he demanded, "A conspiracy? A mutiny?"

Ellen looked resolute. Virginia stuck her tongue out at Grabiner. Amoretta flushed, because she felt vaguely embarrassed.

"It is," the headmistress said with some amusement, "A final examination."

"Madam," Grabiner began with some ire, "I have made my opinion on this matter as clear as I could possibly make it. I will not allow Mrs. Grabiner to participate in this exam."

"How fortunate then," the headmistress said with a droll smile, "That the decision is not yours to make."

"Headmistress - " Grabiner began, with the sharp snap of his heel against the stone of the floor.

Petunia Potsdam raised one of her hands for silence.

"Would you like to lodge a formal complaint, Hieronymous?" she asked pleasantly, and Amoretta's stomach twisted uneasily. She had counted on the headmistress's unwavering support. If the headmistress acceded to Grabiner's demands, both of her friends would be failed on her account.

"I would," Grabiner growled in response, and Petunia Potsdam nodded in a businesslike way.

"Very well then," she said, "Let the record state that Professor Grabiner has filed a formal complaint concerning this examination." Then she turned her back on him and faced the three girls. "Are you ready then?"

"Headmistress!" Grabiner stormed, and found himself immediately at wandpoint.

Petunia Potsdam had still not turned to face him, and kept her eyes on the three freshman girls.

"Hieronymous, this is not the time for one of your tantrums," she said crisply. "I am proctoring this examination. You are welcome to watch if that will give you peace of mind, but I will not allow you to interfere."

Grabiner said something low and partially under his breath that was not particularly nice, and then he turned his back on the four of them, snapping his fingers.

"Kavus," he barked, and the djinni was before him. "See to it that the young woman that I so unwisely married does not get herself killed during this examination," he said shortly. His mood was plainly very sour.

"As you say," Kavus said with a nod, and then disappeared again.

"Hieronymous," Amoretta began, biting her lip, but Grabiner did not turn to face her, simply held up his hand and waved her off.

"If you're so determined to prove yourself capable, then please do so," he said shrewishly. "Why in heaven's name would you do something as absurd as considering  _my feelings_? I'm only your husband, after all."

"You're such a piece of - " Virginia interjected with some force, but what Grabiner was 'such a piece of' was to remain a mystery, because the next sound out of Virginia's mouth was a howl of pain. Ellen had stomped very hard on one of her feet.

The headmistress chortled with amusement.

"Very well then," she said. "Are we ready?"

Amoretta ran her teeth over her lower lip anxiously, and at last nodded her assent with the other girls.

She had decided.

It was time to play her cards.

* * *

As the disorientation from the teleportation spell passed, Amoretta found herself sitting flat on her bottom on the stone floor of the dungeon, with the other two girls peering down at her in concern.

"Sorry," she murmured a quiet apology. She never took other people's teleportation very well.

Virginia helped her to her feet as Ellen cast a light spell.

"Douse that!" Virginia hissed at Ellen. "Whatever is down here with us, which is bound to be _not nice_ , will make a beeline straight this way."

"We've got to have some light," Ellen hissed back, and Amoretta interceded by tapping an index finger to her lips to quiet them and then drawing her own wand.

She cast a brief spell and they seemed to be enveloped like a shroud. The light still illuminated the area directly around them, but now could no longer be seen outside the radius of the shrouding spell.

"It's called Shade of Venus," Amoretta explained, keeping her voice low. "I learned it near the beginning of the year, when I was experimenting with various lighting effects. It's a really useful spell to know if you need to sneak around unnoticed."

"Pretty convenient that all three of us can fit under here," Virginia said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Well, that's the general idea, I think," Amoretta agreed, then as Virginia gave her a look, Amoretta waved both her hands in denial. "Whatever you're thinking, it's  _not true_ , all right? That's _absolutely not_  the reason why I learned this spell."

Ellen hushed them both down again with her palms.

"Why she learned the spell and what she used it for aren't that important right now," Ellen reminded the both of them. "What we've got to do is decide what our strategy is for solving this exam."

"Well, I think," Virginia said, planting both her hands on her hips again, "That we ought to find the biggest monster on this floor and take him out of commission. That thing's got to be guarding the crystal thingy."

Ellen shot a sidelong look at Amoretta that said  _What did I tell you?_

Amoretta imperceptibly shook her head at Ellen, because now was not the time for petty disagreements. Then she said, "Professor Potsdam said that we've got to find a crystal wellspring to pass this exam, right? There might not even be any monsters on this floor."

Virginia's upper lip curled. "Are you for serious?" she demanded, "Because I am willing to bet you ten Italian cream cakes from Alfonso's Bakery that there are monsters on this floor."

Amoretta raised her hands in defense, "Well, you're probably right," she admitted.

"You bet I am, sister," Virginia crowed in triumph, throwing her arms up above her head and causing the Shade of Venus to fluctuate slightly. "So we should go beat up a lot of monsters!" Virginia said decisively with a grin, and looked ready to set off for that express purpose immediately.

"Virginia," Ellen hissed, "Stand still for a minute and listen before I stomp your other foot!"

Virginia rolled her eyes at Ellen and planted her hands on her hips again, petulantly waiting to hear Ellen's suggestion.

"I think Amoretta's right," Ellen said. "I think we ought to try and find the crystal wellspring as our first priority. If we do encounter monsters along the way, then we'll decide how to deal with them when it becomes necessary to deal with them. I bet we could exhaust ourselves fighting monsters down here if we let ourselves get distracted. Our objective is to collect a designated object, not engage in monster extermination."

Amoretta squirmed in place. "I don't like doing that anyway," she reminded them and Virginia let out a sigh.

"All right Grandma One and Grandma Two, what is it you think we should do then?" she asked.

Ellen eyes roved across the darkness that loomed omnipresent around them. The small blue witchlight Ellen had conjured was indeed a comfort.

Ellen balanced her wand on her finger, and then murmured a short spell, and while the wand spun briefly, it would not come to a full stop. Instead it wiggled about drunkenly, like a highly disturbed compass needle.

Ellen frowned.

"It seems like a regular directional spell won't work, so it's going to be hard to get our bearings," she said. "This seems like a really large room. Just listen to the way the sound travels in here. It isn't bouncing off anything but the floor." She shifted her eyes to Amoretta.

Amoretta nodded. "Yeah," she said, "I'll give it a try," and then she pushed out with  _Awareness_. After a moment of concentration, she too frowned.

"It must be a enormous room. I can't feel or see any walls at all, or any barriers or obstacles. It's just huge and open," she said.

Virginia crossed her arms over her chest again, "Which means if there  _are_ monsters down here, then there's nothing between us and them."

"Well," Ellen said with a quirk of her smile, " _You're_  between us and them."

"Oh ha ha," Virginia said, making a face.

Ellen grew serious again. "Given the space we're in, with no walls visible even through mindsight, I imagine the obstacles are laid into the floor, things like teleport tiles, direction turn tiles, and maybe even some trap tiles."

Amoretta thought back to the deep dungeon floor she had visited so recently.

"There might be pit traps too," Amoretta said. "Maybe not enough to get us hurt, but enough for us to get stuck. You and I can teleport, but Virginia - " her eyes swept to the redhead who regarded her sardonically.

"Is only good at blowing things up, is that it?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well - " Amoretta shifted awkwardly in place.

"Look, I prefer the direct approach," Virginia said with a grin, "But my mama didn't raise any stupid children." She paused as if thinking about it. "Well, except maybe for Donald." She patted the small bag she wore over one shoulder. "I came prepared." She flipped the flap of the bag open briefly and Amoretta could see a number of potion bottles inside it. She let the flap fall closed again.

"All right," Ellen said, interceding between the two of them, "We've established that you can both take care of yourselves." She paused and considered the situation. "Given how big this room is, and how little we can determine about the layout, I think it would probably be best if we split up. If we stay connected up through Farspeak, we ought to be able to explore the whole area thoroughly and quickly." Her eyes swept to Amoretta. "Will you be all right on your own?"

Amoretta nodded. "I'm a big girl," she reassured, but then laughed quietly. "Well, I suppose I'm really a  _little_ girl, but I'll be fine."

Amoretta and Ellen connected up with one another through a combination cast of Farspeak, and then linked up with Virginia, who told them that their thoughts felt like alka seltzer in her brain.

_Good,_  Amoretta felt Ellen think at the both of them.  _Maybe it'll clean things up in there._

They all three stood with their backs to one another, and then taking deep breaths, they took their first steps into the dark unknown. Virginia went without a light at all, relying instead on tracking by scent. Ellen took her dimmed witchlight with her, leaving Amoretta bearing the Shade of Venus. Amoretta called up her own little witchlight and moved forward very slowly and carefully.

Although she could feel her friends through the mindlink of Farspeak, unless they were actively thinking at her, it was easy to forget that they were there. The large empty underground space put a primal sort of fear into Amoretta's heart. There was no real sound other than her own breathing, but the awesomeness of the dark, empty space around her made the silence roar loudly in her ears, and press hard against her, like a hot, physical thing.

She felt a little ill.

She thought she saw something fluttering at the corner of her vision, and her eyes darted to follow it, but she could make out nothing but the omnipresent darkness. She swallowed hard and wrapped her arms around herself, wondering if night haunts might be able to catch her while she was awake, if she was careless. Kavus was with her now, and surely he would call an alert if he detected anything unusual, anything _out of place_  during the exam.

Her shoulder hurt and absently she placed her fingers over it and murmured a spell to dull the pain.

There was no reason to dwell on what lurked. She could do nothing about what had happened in the past. All she could do was concentrate on doing what needed to be done now. She had a job to do and her friends were depending on her.

She pressed forward into the darkness.

* * *

She had discovered and flagged two different floor traps with low light beacon outlines when her exploration was interrupted by a triumphant ping from Virginia.

_Bingo,_  she sang out in Amoretta's mind.  _I've found them._

_You've found what?_ demanded Ellen.

_I've found the monsters on this floor,_ Virginia answered easily.  _There are three of them, and they're all really huge pigs. They're really smelly, like a pizza box I shoved under my bed and forgot for three months._

Virginia paused to think a really disgusting smell at the both of them, and Amoretta had to stop to cover her mouth with her hands.

_Virginia, stop that!_ ordered Ellen

Amoretta could feel Virginia mentally shrugging.

_It's great that you found the monsters,_  Ellen was thinking,  _But you were supposed to be looking for the crystal wellspring._

_I found that too,_  Virginia announced off-hand.  _Those monsters are guarding it._

Amoretta felt Ellen grumble.

_Great_ , she thought.

_Well_ , Amoretta tried to point out the bright side of things.  _At least we know where it is._

_Granted,_  Ellen agreed.  _Now we just have to decide what to do about the monsters._

Not even a single beat passed before Virginia suggested,  _Let's fry them!_

Amoretta heard Ellen grumble again as she patiently explained why Virginia's 'plan' - such as it was - was not the best idea.

_You said there were three large monsters, right? You're the only combat witch on our team. Sure, I might be able to do some damage in a pinch, but I've always focused on theory over application when it comes to red magic. Amoretta's entirely a support witch, and she's got reduced mobility on top of that. Think things through,_ she chided.  _You can't take on three huge monsters by yourself._

_All right then,_ Virginia demanded. _What's your plan?_

_Ellen and I could try a combination teleportation. Both of us together might be able to teleport them away,_ Amoretta suggested pensively. She wasn't really sure that was the best idea because -

_But there's nowhere to teleport them to,_  Ellen said.  _You still haven't come across any rooms, have you? Not even any oubliettes. If we teleported them away, we'd just be sending them to somewhere in this big open room, and they could charge right back at us. We don't know how much time we'll need once we get the crystal wellspring. It's too dangerous._

_I bet the headmistress arranged it this way on purpose,_  Amoretta sighed.  _She wanted to force me to adapt. If there was a way to use teleportation, she knew I'd try it. Sorry guys._

_It's all right,_  Ellen thought back.  _We'll just have to try something else._

_Unless . . ._ Amoretta thought, biting her lower lip.

* * *

Grabiner stood with his arms crossed hard over his chest, as if they had been lashed there. His hat was pulled down to shade his eyes because he was in no mood to chat with Petunia Potsdam, who still held him at wandpoint. Between the two of them, they had half a dozen scrying windows open, monitoring the situation in the dungeon. So far, nothing particularly untoward had happened, although he had experienced an unintentional coughing fit during the discussion of Amoretta's mastery of the Shade of Venus.

Of course, he knew the layout of this dungeon floor, knew the objectives of this examination, because he had prepared much of it himself, although it was Petunia Potsdam who was now enjoying the fruits of his labor by proctoring the exam. Glancing sidelong at the headmistress's wand, Grabiner at last remarked.

"You don't need to keep holding that wand on me, headmistress," he said. "I'm hardly going to disrupt the exam now."

Petunia Potsdam made a slight huffing sound through her nose, but did not let her eyes stray from the scrying windows she had open.

"I think I'll keep my wand on you, just the same, Hieronymous. I know it's just a matter of time until that girl does something that's going to make you fly off the handle or otherwise have a fit," she said mildly. "I have no idea  _what_ she plans to do, but I imagine it will be  _surprising_ , I imagine it will upset  _you_ , and I imagine it will be either catastrophic or spectacular, or perhaps spectacularly catastrophic. You  _are_ cut from the same cloth, after all."

"She's still weak," Grabiner answered shortly after a moment of thought. "You see how she has to keep stopping to rest?" he waved his hand briefly at one of his scrying windows. He frowned as he watched her stop and cover her shoulder with a hand, saw the magic forming there, under her fingers, as she murmured to herself with her eyes closed. "She's in pain, now."

"And that's a pain she's going to have to carry, Hieronymous," the headmistress pointed out patiently. "If she had wished to refrain from taking this exam, then I would not have thought less of her for it, although of course I would have enforced the penalty, for that is the only way for things to remain fair. But she did not wish to hide and tremble, Hieronymous. She is likely afraid, even now - that dungeon is not the most hospitable of environments - but she is unwilling to let her fear control her. She is willing to face what stands before her."

"I knew a woman like that once," Grabiner said very quietly, and he sounded very tired.

"I know," the headmistress answered simply, and that was all she said.

Grabiner's attention was suddenly drawn to his scrying windows again, because Amoretta was down on the ground on her hands and knees. At first he thought she had fallen, but after calling the spell into closer focus, he realized that she was on her hands and knees with a piece of chalk between her fingers.

She was drawing something out on the ground, while the witchlight hovered over her shoulder.

"That's vervain chalk from my desk drawer," Grabiner complained.

"Half of all that's best of yours," the headmistress trilled with some amusement.

Grabiner frowned.

"But she shouldn't know anything about the construction of material circles yet, no matter how advanced she is for a freshman. Students don't begin learning to construct circles until their junior year," he pointed out, bending lower over his scrying window and trying to make out what it was she was drawing. "I certainly haven't taught her how to lay a circle." Suddenly he stabbed his finger at the window again. "Look at that! Orientation spells ought to be confounded on that floor, but she's just laid out an accurate axis of absolute direction."

"I see that, Hieronymous," Petunia Potsdam answered, and her early frivolity was gone. She was concentrating very hard on the window that showed Amoretta laboring over her chalk drawing.

"What is she drawing?" Grabiner growled, pulling his scrying window around with both of his hands, focusing it and refocusing it, trying to see clearly what it is she was doing. Whatever it was, it was a big circle, perhaps twenty feet across. "She can't possibly imagine she'll be able to throw a circle that large on her first try," Grabiner was shaking his head. "It's preposterous. She doesn't have that much control over mana flow yet. For a circle as large as that she'd have to use ritual magic, given her skill level."

At last Amoretta seemed to have finished what she was doing, and Grabiner watched her creep away on her hands and knees, dragging her right hand behind her, her palm flat against the ground. When she was some distance away, she hunkered down even further and Grabiner saw the tell-tale flicker as she shivered mostly out of sight, concealed by a cloaking spell. He could still see her, because he knew what to look for, but she was ghostly and indistinct.

He focused one of his scrying windows on her, and the other on the circle she had drawn.

"It's just rubbish," he said, rubbing his knuckles hard against his head. No matter how he turned his scrying window, that's all the circle she had drawn amounted to. "It's like a sidewalk picture drawn by a child."

The headmistress didn't answer him, but she did point to one of her own windows.

"Look," she commanded, and he tore his eyes away from where Amoretta lay crouched.

Virginia Danson was  _sprinting_ , running as if her life depended on it, at a speed that might have impressed an Olympic committee.

In this circumstance, it was quite unsurprising that she was sprinting, because she had three very large, very irate refuse boars in hot pursuit of her. Grabiner did not have to plot her course through his scrying windows to understand that Virginia was running straight toward the circle that Amoretta had drawn.

When she was still some distance away from the circle, Grabiner saw Virginia wink out with the very precise and controlled teleport that he knew at a glance belonged to Ellen Middleton. The three huge boars continued toward Amoretta's strange circle, however, and Grabiner recognized the twinkle of a  _Lure_ spell laid around it like the glittering trail left behind by a large snail.

Virginia Danson had brought them close enough to the lure that they had been ensnared by it. Now they advanced on Amoretta's circle, and on Amoretta herself, who still lay crouched against the ground, under her cloaking spell.

He heard the boars snuffling around, could almost feel their steamy breath, and for a moment it seemed like they were bound to drift in Amoretta's direction and root her out like a hidden truffle. At last they seemed to reconsider, and moved into the circle, running their snouts along the slimy trail of the lure spell.

Like statuary brought to life by magic, when Amoretta moved it was sudden and fluid. She sat up, and the cloaking spell on her broke, and in that same moment he saw the boars turn their flame red eyes toward her. But then she was drawing a small blade across her left index finger, and without thinking, he was patting his pockets, because it was _his knife_.

Then she slammed both of her hands on the ground at once, and the brilliant light of a magical current lit up the darkness of the dungeon. It was like a flame following a line of gasoline.

_She laid a line of chemical scent,_  he realized, his eyes dilating.

The light shot along the ground between Amoretta and the circle at a speed that was difficult to follow, and then the whole circle lit up with light and mana.

Transfixed by the scene as it played out in slow motion before him, Grabiner could hear nothing but the roaring sound of the abyss as a huge portal opened up on the floor underneath the boars, as wide and staring as the eye of god. It was banded and swirling, rimmed in the color of sunset. He hadn't seen the spell in years, and the sight of it nearly stopped his heart.

It was an invocation of the Spiral Gate.

Amoretta had opened the Spiral Gate.

_She had opened an instance of the Spiral Gate that was nearly large enough to send a_ bus  _through._

All at once his silent madness broke into frenzied panic, and he might have done something desperate had he not felt the sharp tip of Petunia Potsdam's wand against his cheek.

"You will do  _nothing_ , Hieronymous," she said, and her voice was a knell of death. "If you interrupt her now, she may not be able to close it. She's bound that circle in her own blood. If she cannot close it then the circle will consume her like dry kindling."

And so he stood, paralyzed by horror and dread as he watched smoky black tendrils wrap around the boars and pull them slowly downward, as if they were disappearing into a tar swamp. The brilliant circle she had ascribed on the floor with chalk had transposed itself to the air above the spell, and stood, slowly revolving, as the boars were dragged away. At last, the terrible eye in the floor winked closed, and the light went completely out.

Amoretta stood up -

and then fell right back down on her bottom again as her legs gave way.

The headmistress let out a great sigh of relief.

"It's all right," she told him. "The danger has passed."

But she did not draw her wand away from his face, as if she worried what he might do if she did.

* * *

Amoretta sat on her bottom, weakly kicking her legs.

"Did you get it?" she hollered into the blackness.

"We got it!" came the answering whoop of Virginia Danson.

"Great!" cheered Amoretta happily, and then she laughed awkwardly. "Um, could someone come and get me?" she yelled hopefully. "I don't think I can walk."

_I'm coming,_  Ellen pushed against her mind, and then suddenly Ellen Middleton was right beside her.

"You know," she said as the light from her teleportation faded, "That was really amazing."

"Well," laughed Amoretta. "You told me to play to my strengths, and one of my strengths just happens to be pickpocketing."

Ellen shook her head as she knelt down. "You know that's not what I'm talking about."

Amoretta shrugged mildly. "I'm just glad it worked," she said. "If it hadn't, someone would have had to come rescue me from becoming boar food."

Ellen looked across the dungeon to where the circle had been laid. Not a mark remained.

"I'm not sure how you even thought of doing something like that," Ellen said, her mouth a very thin line. "If I had really known what you were planning to do, I probably wouldn't have let you try it."

"Which is why I didn't really tell you what I was planning to do," Amoretta pointed out with a weak laugh. "You see, Kavus told me that the dungeons aren't warded against true planar travel. There weren't any places we could put those things here - but then it just seemed so straightforward. I could just  _send them home._ "

Ellen bit her lip. "That thing you did, that material circle you laid, I don't think that's a thing we're supposed to be able to do."

Amoretta shrugged again. "Well," she said philosophically. "I did it."

"He's going to be really angry," Ellen predicted. Neither of them felt the need to qualify who 'he' was. It was obvious.

"I know," Amoretta laughed. "What can I say? I'm really good at making him angry."

From across the dungeon, the two girls heard Virginia whoop again.

"Come on, ladies. I don't want to spend the rest of my life down here!"

Amoretta crawled onto Ellen's back, and Ellen stood up with her holding on, piggyback, and then Amoretta felt the disorientation sweep over her as she experienced Ellen's teleportation.

* * *

In the warm sunlight, Amoretta hugged tightly to Ellen's neck, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light above ground. In front of them stood Professors Grabiner and Potsdam. Professor Potsdam was still holding Grabiner at wand point, although the examination was quite over.

She did not lower her wand even as she focused her gaze on Amoretta.

"Young lady," she said very seriously, "Do you realize how dangerous it was for you to open the Spiral Gate at your age?"

"Well, I didn't really open it," Amoretta said, shaking her head as she clung to Ellen like a little monkey. "I mean,  _technically_ I did," she admitted. "But it wasn't like I just flung open the back door. My circle was a permeable membrane, but it was only permeable in one direction. It was a one-way gate. I deported them."

Petunia Potsdam looked very thoughtful.

"Are you certain of that?" she asked. "Explain it to me," she said, as if Amoretta might have something to teach her.

Amoretta nodded, and letting go of Ellen's neck, slid down her back and stood on her own two feet, tottering momentarily, before she went down on all fours again.

She had pulled out the chalk.

"You see," she said. "It goes like this."

And their she proceeded to draw her weird squiggly shapes all over the ground.

"This part makes it only go one way. Nothing comes in. Only things with a resonance for the Otherworld go out. That's why it's a deportation circle."

"But you might have lost control of it, child," the headmistress said, shaking her head. "You bound that circle in your own blood to power it. If you had not successfully closed it, that would have killed you quite surely."

Amoretta shook her head again.

"I thought of that. Really, I've been thinking about this for quite a while. All the accounts of material circle magic are all about how if you lose control of the circle while its open you're bound to end up dead, so I made up this part," she paused and began scribbling a smaller secondary circle that was part of the larger circle's full design, slightly offset, but bound by intersecting lines. "I based the idea on how smoke alarms work. Do you know?" she asked the headmistress with interest, but that good lady was forced to shake her head. "Well, there's a circuit inside a smoke alarm that always complete. That's the thing that keeps the smoke alarm from going off. Basically, when that small circuit is complete, the larger circuit that powers the alarm can't go off. So you see, a smoke alarm is always ready to make noise. You might say that the resting state of a smoke alarm is actually making noise, and not being silent. In that way, the resting state of my circle is to close right up. But when environmental circumstances change - say the room fills up with smoke, or I move to interrupt the circuit of this smaller circle, then the larger circuit is completed, and the smoke alarm goes off - or in my case, my material circle goes into production. I was also careful to lay out some additional failsafes. Do you see this part?" she asked, scribbling away at several words that lay in one of the most exterior rings of the circle, "That makes it close itself after a set time interval, no matter what, even if I'm still trying to keep it open. The circle pings itself, you know, to establish its own personal time, so it's not influenced by local temporal fluctuations. Even if someone breaks the circle, or crosses over into it unwisely," she flushed a little, "So long as this little part is intact, the circle will close up again safely, and send away whatever was summoned. In fact, as a failsafe, if the circle is broken, it'll start to close up immediately. I did that with conditional circuits bound into the fabric of the circle. It'll really only work in very specific circumstances, which makes it very safe to use - not without risk entirely, but with reduced risk. Obviously it takes a lot of mana to power a spell like this, with so many conditions, which is why I had to bind it in my own blood. That's why," she wavered slightly where she sat, "That's why I'm a little exhausted."

Grabiner, who had been silent all this time, staring at Amoretta as if she were a golden winged unicorn who had descended from heaven to deliver the secret to world peace, at last roared, " _Stop drawing a material circle to open the Spiral Gate on the floor in a classroom_."

"Oh, oh right," Amoretta said with an embarrassed smile, and then pulled a brush from out of her pockets and began effacing the marks she'd made.

" _That is also from my desk,"_ Grabiner said, in a voice that sounded like death. He still appeared to be in shock.

"I know," Amoretta answered amiably. "Thanks for letting me borrow all this stuff."

Grabiner was notably silent, although Petunia Potsdam finally lowered her wand as she bent to study the marks that Amoretta was so busy brushing away. Grabiner did not fly into an immediate fury, which was fortunate. The headmistress had again accurately judged his breaking strain.

Ellen and Virginia were also watching Amoretta with interest as she whisked away at the floor with the little brush.

At last the headmistress straightened.

"Amoretta," she asked carefully. "Who was it that taught you how to draw this circle?"

Amoretta cocked her head to the side. "Well, nobody taught me, really. I studied out of a lot of books. I was really interested in the Spiral Gate when you taught us about it at the beginning of the year, so I read up on it as much as I could. Only all the circles in the books that I could find were really complicated, and I didn't really understand them. So I tried making my own diagrams. That turned out a lot better. It was so hard to understand the other way," she said, shaking her head. "I guess I put my first circles together in October? I've been working on them since then." She grimaced. "Professor Grabiner put me on the spot an awful lot about traditional circles this spring, and I couldn't tell him anything about them. I just have my circles. I know they look strange, and they're not very pretty, not like traditional circles are, but I am proud of them."

"You should be," said the headmistress thoughtfully, crossing her arms over her chest. She shook her head slightly, as if clearing it. "You have all three passed this exam with distinction. Congratulations." She focused her eyes seriously on Amoretta. "Please, by all means continue your studies, Amoretta, but do not, _under any circumstances except the most dire_ , open the Spiral Gate again until you graduate from Iris Academy. Your safeguards are very clever, and you are obviously very gifted, but you're still just a girl, and you have very much to learn."

Amoretta bowed her head, flushing.

"It  _worked_ ," she protested in meek rebellion.

And then Petunia Potsdam brushed her hand across her forehead and threw her head back laughing.

"Hieronymous, take your awful wife away," she laughed, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. "I don't think I can bear any more of either of you today."

* * *

When Petunia Potsdam collapsed into a mad laughing fit, Grabiner collected his wife, as he was bidden, and carried her off. She waved cheerfully at her friends with both of her hands, and they waved back with less than enthused expressions. Virginia stuck her tongue out as if she were going to retch, and Ellen looked  _decidedly_ worried, as if she feared that Grabiner intended to murder Amoretta and bury her in a garden.

Grabiner apparently didn't have the patience to carry her all the way back to their quarters. Instead, he carried into his blue magic classroom, deposited her in his desk chair, and then locked the door behind himself.

Then he put both of his hands firmly on her shoulders, and she could feel the weight of his hands, the strong, unshakable strength of his long fingers.

"Amoretta," he said very slowly, and he sounded very calm. But then everything burst, like a flash flood rolling through a narrow canyon.  _"What did you think you were doing?_ " he demanded. " _How on earth did you do that? You are a freshman student, and not only that, you are one of the dunces of the freshman class, who cannot even light a candle with a Spark. You are not some sort of spatial reasoning genius. You are not any kind of genius. You should not have been able to do what you did, and even had you known how to do it, did you take leave of your senses entirely? Do you have even the slightest conception of how dangerous that was? You could have been killed. You bound a circle with your own blood. What possessed you to do such an insane thing as opening the Spiral Gate? It was just a damned school examination. You didn't even have to take it. You would have been passed up just the same -_  "

He had given her a hard shake each time he had asked her a question, and by the end of it her teeth were rattling in her head and he was crying. He got down on his knees and he wrapped his arms around her and he held her so tightly it felt as if he wanted to break all her bones, one at a time.

His tears washed away the last bit of her bravado, and she also began to cry into his shoulder, burying her face against his neck.

"I just wanted to show him that he couldn't beat me," she sobbed. "I just wanted to show that I wasn't beaten, that he hadn't won. I don't belong to him. I can stand on my own two feet."

Her confession was very pitiful, and he held onto her even more tightly as she sobbed it out, because she  _couldn't_ really stand on her own feet, not now, not tired and exhausted and crying. He was possessed with the great desire to banish all her troubles, as if they might have been tangible beasties he could exorcise with the appropriate spell.

_The world buffets against her,_ he thought, and the thought was half nonsense, but it was also somehow true.

Grabiner sat down on the floor and pulled her out of the chair and into his lap, and he held her there, as they both leaned against his desk, and he tried his damnedest to comfort her. Her real, physical presence had done much to calm him, and his tears had already slowed into nothing, because the awful fear had passed. She had not been taken from him.

Another day was passing away, and she had not yet been taken from him.

She was still crying, a little, but his warm, quiet presence was slowly, ever so slowly, helping her to calm down.

"I really can't believe you did that," he said very soberly after the last of her tears had stopped, and he had dried them with his handkerchief. "Opening the Spiral Gate. A first year student opening the Spiral Gate as if it were nothing. You are uncommonly clever, I'll give you that, but that wasn't clever," he said, shaking his head. "That was monstrous. That was insane, and doing it with your absurd little scribble drawings - "

"Don't make fun of them," she sniffled. "I worked really hard on them."

"When I wasn't looking, apparently," he noted dryly.

She shook her head. "No, I told the headmistress already. I did most of the work back in October. And then, well, then I heard that you're very sensitive about - well, that something bad happened to you in the Otherworld - "

"Yes, it did," he said shortly, and she could feel his arms tense as he squeezed her briefly, and then he relaxed.

"So I thought it would be best if I just put the work away for a while. But then," she squirmed awkwardly. "Well, you've been gone so much - I was just looking at my notes the other day, and I realized that I could make some corrections. I know a lot more now than I did back in October, obviously," she said with a smile. "You work very hard at helping me understand things."

Grabiner coughed and it was clear he was trying to cover his embarrassment. "I can hardly take credit for this," he said. "What you did - " He shook his head. "Remarkable isn't a powerful enough word. It really was  _quite insane_." He paused. "For instance, how did you lay out an axis of absolute direction? You shouldn't have be able to do such a thing in an disorientation field unless you have some sort of innate sense of direction - "

"But I do," Amoretta said with a laugh, and when Grabiner frowned she tapped him in the chest with one of her fingers. "It's  _you_. I knew where you were on the campus, you know? Because I'd just been there. And I could feel where I was in relation to you by concentrating. So I just worked it all out in my head."

"You used the union of souls to set an axis of absolute direction?" he asked incredulously.

"Play to your strengths," she reminded him with a smile.

Grabiner shook his head, mildly exasperated.

Amoretta shrugged, leaning close to him again. "I'm just glad it worked," she said. "I wouldn't have had enough power to fuel the spell if I hadn't bound it in blood."

"You cut open your finger," he said, as if this fact had previously been pushed from his mind.

He pulled her left hand out of her lap and held it in front of himself, so that he could look at it. There was a line of crimson across her index finger. The blood was still a little damp, although it was becoming viscous as it dried. It was not a deep cut, but it was not a light one either. It was a cut that had been made with strength and intention. It had been no accident.

Amoretta's heart stopped beating as he drew her finger to his lips, and then she felt it pass into his warm mouth, grazing his front teeth. She felt him run his tongue over the tip of her finger, where the line of blood had been drawn, and she felt very faint as all the blood rushed to her head.

"What - what - what are you doing?" she stammered, feeling as if she were in a pot slowly being brought to a simmer. Steam would begin escaping from her ears, shortly.

He absently drew her finger out of his mouth and said, "Punishment," with no further explanation.

"I'm not sure," she struggled to catch her breath, "I'm not sure it's working the way you mean it to."

"Then," he said deliberately, "I'll have to try again."

But empirical consideration of the successfulness of this looming second punishment was to be postponed, for at that moment Grabiner's wristwatch began to chime incessantly, sounding rather like a grandfather clock tolling out the hours to five hundred o'clock. He shifted her around to consult it and then grumbled very loudly.

"I've got to give an exam," he complained, although he did not immediately push her off his lap, but instead sat considering. "It's for those wretched boys," he said after a moment, "The delinquent backbone of your Cards and Dice Club: Donald Danson and Luke Phifer. Would you like to come and watch?"

Amoretta cocked her head to the side. "Would that really be proper? I mean, I'm just a student - "

"You've finished the term and been passed up to sophomore," he answered shortly. "At the moment, as far as I'm concerned, you're simply my wife. Besides," he cast his gaze sidelong and would not look at her directly. "I'm not sure I'm ready to have you out of my sight yet."

Amoretta's heart was touched, and her life felt so full it was overflowing, but that didn't stop her from giggling impudently.

"Hieronymous," she teased, "You're so devoted - "

Grabiner flushed slightly, and tried very hard to look stern, although he was obviously pleased, "Don't think you're going to sweet-talk me out of lecturing you about your antics today. You're going to get a lecture, young lady, a long one and a serious one. Just," he paused, consulting his watch again before standing up, pulling her up with him. "Just later, when there's actually time for one." He gently set her on her feet, but kept his hands on her shoulders. "Can you stand?" he asked.

"I can," she said with a shy nod. "So long as I have your arm."

"You know you always do," he said with quiet warmth, and then bent to brush his lips against her forehead.

Then the watch started bonging again alarmingly, and he hurriedly gave her his arm and rushed them both out of the classroom.


	18. Sixteen: The Subtlest Spell By Far

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I saw her at the county ball;  
> There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle  
> Gave signal sweet in that old hall  
> Of hands across and down the middle,  
> Hers was the subtlest spell by far  
> Of all that sets young hearts romancing:  
> She was our queen, our rose, our star;  
> And then she danced, —O Heaven! her dancing
> 
> Winthrop Mackworth Praed, The Belle of the Ball

After so much haste and worry, spending a morning in the quiet warmth and comfortable stillness of the bed was a strange treasure. Grabiner had purposefully turned off all his alarms the evening previous, so that when he did come awake it was gradually, like dawn touching the pale corners of a darkened sky. It was still an unfamiliar pleasure to wake up in a bed warm from company and accept that that company pleased him, that she was wanted, and in fact  _needed_. Always before he had insisted to himself that waking up next to her was an unfortunate complication of his life, one that was undesirable and best unremarked upon. He had treated her like a cat who creeps into one's bed despite all standing rules: an unwelcome but unremarkable surprise.

But in these latter days he had cast off the heavy shroud of bitterness he had worn like a hazmat suit to protect himself from her ever-so-willing advances. He was finally ready to accept what stood as the plain and unvarnished truth: waking up next to her was a simple pleasure that eased his heart without words. In other ways the feelings he had when waking up next to her were very complicated and not easily described. Of course there was happiness: happiness that she was there with him in this quiet, familiar place that belonged only to the both of them, but morning was also a time of anticipation, when he was keenly aware of the scent of her, of the  _feeling_ of her next to him, particularly when he had the luxury of lingering in bed and putting off appointments. It was also a time of silent reflection and honest adoration. When she slept he could look at her for as long as he liked, studying the rosy curve of her cheek, or the length of her forearm, as pale and slender as bone. When she was awake, her small hands were like live animals, always in motion, always flitting about from place to place. When she slept they were fascinating constructions of flesh as white as marble, with intricate, complex, and graceful lines and curves, like the topography of an alien Eden. It was bewildering to realize that such breathtaking studies of light and shadow, effortlessly beautiful, were so impossibly familiar, impossibly close. They were the silhouettes cast on the wall when perpetual motion was still.

When her eyes were open he was still hesitant to let his eyes stay on her, as if still feared what he would give away if she caught him staring.

It wasn't as if he would have denied his feelings for her if she had asked him directly - not here, not now. It wasn't as if he really and truly wanted to conceal his feelings from  _her_ , although being put on the spot about them was certainly embarrassing. But despite his admissions, despite what he had sworn to her, despite what he had accepted about himself, he still had unshakable paranoid delusions that if he became too comfortable, that if he became complacent, that some unsuspected disaster would arise to wipe his fleeting happiness away as if it had never existed at all. These were the new fears that haunted his nightmares and intermingled with the shame and guilt he had carried now for nearly half of his life.

For the last several nights he had taken to lashing his right wrist to her left wrist, so that when she rolled over, she pulled his arm quite naturally around her. Now when he woke up he was presented with the shallow curve between her shoulder blades, and could count the knobby little rungs of her spine as they disappeared under the cover of her pajama shirt on their way to her tailbone. She was flesh and blood and bone, not a figment, not a memory, not a passing miracle. Here was the place she had made her nest, here with him, in the quiet room filled with books.

He laid his cheek in the inviting hollow between her shoulders, and felt the delicate hairs on her skin as warm as silk, heard her heartbeat, the steady sound of her life, the metronome that marked the continued passage of her personal time. The scent of her skin was dusty and sweet and a little tangy. He pulled her flush against him, taking animal pleasure in the incontrovertible truth of her slight but undeniable physical presence.

She was alive. They were both alive and breathing and living in this single extraordinary moment.

He held her very still and counted out the moments to himself silently, as if they might have been rubies and emeralds he meant to store in his dragon's hoard.

She made a small, sleepy sound in the back of her throat, and then she squirmed a little, yawning.

"Good morning," Amoretta murmured, sounding like a peeping chick who has just emerged from under her mother's feathers for the first time.

"Good morning," Grabiner answered evenly, speaking directly into the back of her neck, so his lips brushed against her warm, flushed skin.

Amoretta made a mild grumbling sound. "Hieronymous," she complained. "That tickles."

"I'm sure it does," he agreed.

"Well, quit it," she grumbled again, somewhat ineffectually.

"All right," he said suddenly, as if he found her deeply uninteresting. "Have it your way."

He rolled away from her, but doing so tugged her own arm out from under her and forcibly rolled her onto her back. They lay on their backs, side by side, staring blankly at the ceiling.

After a moment, he observed blandly, "This is certainly an improvement."

She shoved him weakly with her free hand. "Why are you always so awful in the mornings?" she complained.

Grabiner waved his free hand idly in the air over his head. "I seriously doubt my personality is noticeably altered based on the time of day."

"Then you're awful _all of the time_ ," Amoretta declared, sticking her tongue out.

"You must really be looking forward to spending the entire summer with me, then," Grabiner said, moving suddenly to pin her underneath him.

Amoretta squirmed around, but could not really do much to escape, given that he had both the height and weight advantage on her. Fortunately, he wasn't bearing down on her with much of his weight, as he had propped himself up on his arms, so it was much less unpleasant than the time he had rolled on top of her while attempting to turn off the alarm clock.

In the midst of her squirming, he observed, "If you're trying to  _dissuade_ me from keeping you here, then I suggest you stop wriggling about in such a distracting manner."

"I ought to call the board of education," Amoretta said impudently. "Because you've got awfully suspicious attitudes for a teacher."

"Then I'll call juvenile hall," he returned with equal gravity, "Because you've  _certainly_ got suspicious attitudes for a student."

Then he leaned down and brushed his lips against the tip of her nose before rolling off of her and beginning to work at the knotted ribbon at their wrists. Amoretta sat up groggily, still rubbing at her eyes with her free hand and yawning.

"Stop fidgeting," he commanded, because she had pulled both their bound hands into her own lap.

She stopped fidgeting and instead leaned against him bonelessly, like a little noodle.

"Do you feel like you still need to rest?" he asked her quietly. "I only have a couple of appointments today, and I could reschedule them. I know I've been pushing you very hard these last two weeks, even after I swore to make things easier for you."

She let out a contented sigh and then smiled. "They will be easier, soon enough. I really appreciate all the work you've been doing, Hieronymous. I only wish I could do something to help - "

"You can help me by not exerting yourself and getting well," he said seriously. "You'll have nothing but lessons and bed rest until I'm satisfied that you really have gotten stronger, so enjoy the end of term with your friends. Many of them will be leaving for the summer and you won't see them again until the fall term begins."

She smiled again, fondly. "You really are very good to me," Amoretta said with a quiet laugh, then shook her head briefly. "It's hard to imagine that the school year is ending, that the seniors have already graduated. It seems like this year has flown by, like old leaves carried away by the wind." Now her smile was wistful. "In other ways, it feels like it's been a very, very long time. I have a new place to belong."

Grabiner let his eyes rest on her only briefly before he looked away. "You do," he agreed.

She nodded, happy with his quiet words of affection.

 _I love you,_ he said, even when he didn't say it.

"I'll be all right today," she said at last. "I don't need you to clear your schedule or anything. I don't really have anywhere to be today, anyway. I can just sit and read all day long, if I like, although I'll probably go and spend the day with the girls, since Virginia is going home for the summer, I know."

Grabiner paused momentarily as he finished unknotting the ribbon, but then laid it aside on his bedside table.

"You haven't forgotten that photographs for the yearbook are taken today, have you?" he asked her, one of his eyebrows raised. "I doubt it will take much of your time, but it is courteous to show up to be photographed when you're scheduled to be photographed. I can't have people calling my wife rude, now can I?" he asked her, vaguely amused.

He was certain that sitting for the yearbook photographs had slipped her mind. She had only passed her final examinations the day before, and they had been preoccupying her for some time. Or perhaps the answer was simpler even than that. It might be that she didn't consider sitting to be photographed a real commitment because it was bound to only take a few minutes of her time. He planned to sit for his before he left for the day's errands. But he felt one thing for certain: yearbook photos were certainly the sort of jolly school experience she positively reveled in, along with bake sales, school dances, hall passes, club sports, and cafeteria lunches. He was surprised she hadn't marked it on her calendar - but then again, he wasn't really. She rarely marked  _anything_ on her calendar.

At the moment, the only thing he was absolutely positive that she had marked on her calendar was the date of January 26th, 2004, which was circled in red and bore the important reminder 'get married again.'

As if he could forget.

He was musing over this very important date when she surprised him by shaking her head almost imperceptibly.

"Oh, I don't sit for yearbook photos," she said, and her smile was warm, but it was also a little nervous, as if her warmth were forced, rather than natural.

"What?" Grabiner asked, his brows drawing together, because this was certainly an answer he had not expected. "What, are you allergic to reflector umbrellas?" he quipped.

Amoretta shook her head again. "No," she said as she laughed dutifully at his joke. "It's just that I don't really sit for photographs at all. When you sit for a photograph, you leave a trace of yourself behind."

Grabiner rolled his eyes as he stood up from the bed, "Is this another of your absurd superstitions?" he demanded. "Nothing is retained on normal photographic film but an image generated by light exposure. That is the only 'trace' that you will leave behind."

He turned his back on her and shrugged out of his pajama shirt, heading toward the bathroom.

Amoretta followed behind him like a lost kitten.

"That's the trace I mean," she said, "A photograph is like a printed memory that anyone can look at."

That gave him enough pause that he stopped and looked at her over his shoulder.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, suddenly uncertain of his footing in the conversation.

"That's the trace I mean," she repeated, nodding her head as if this made her strange words more clear. "I don't sit for photographs because photographs leave evidence of your person. Photographs leave a trail through the past that anyone can pick up. If someone wanted to track you down, they could find you just by connecting up photographs, like piecing together other people's memories. If there aren't any photographs of a person, they're much harder to find, because the world is a big place. If you're never photographed, it's sort of like you don't even exist at all, not to most people. You're like a ghost. You're only real to the people who hear and see you every day. That's one of the reasons I've never been in any of my yearbooks. I'm always 'Not Shown.'"

He turned to face her, his mouth a thin line. Now he was concerned. "Just who are you worried will find you out, Amoretta?" he asked. "What are you afraid of?"

Amoretta shook her head and waved her hands vaguely. "It's not a specific person, or anything. It's just, when I was very small, I was taught to be very careful about things like photographs."

Grabiner frowned. "By your father?" he asked. This made some sense. Grabiner knew, through her admissions and his own experience, that Amoretta's father was aware of her uncanny luck, and cautioned her against revealing herself to the public.

But Amoretta shook her head again.

"Not just papa. Uncle Carmine and Aunt Tulip too, and Grandma Marianne," she tilted her head slightly to the side. "I know it's just another eccentric thing about me. By now I've heard it hundreds of times how strange it is that I don't ever want to be in photographs - at birthday parties, graduation, dances, anything." She shrugged and was obviously trying to keep her voice light. "But I'm really used to being strange at this point. It doesn't bother me any more. Strange just happens to be the way I am."

Amoretta apparently wasn't perturbed at all by the extreme paranoia of the position she had been trained to consider normal from her early childhood, but even Grabiner, who was reasonably paranoid himself, found her calm and peaceful acceptance of a life lived under such limits to be a little heartbreaking.

She was vibrant and open. It wasn't like her to hang back, hiding out of sight, wrapping herself in a mantle of non-identity.

He did not like that she had called herself a ghost.

He had enough ghosts in his life as it was.

He tried to reason with her. "Amoretta, you're a student at a school for witches. The Iris Academy yearbook will have a circulation of about a hundred and fifty copies, all of which will remain in the Witch World. You don't have to live your life like you're in the witness protection program," he said seriously, putting a warm palm on her shoulder. "Sit with your friends and have your picture taken. No harm will come of it."

Amoretta leaned her cheek against his hand briefly, and then shook her head again, resolute.

"It's much better not to take chances," she said, and her smile was weak, but determined. His suggestion that she ought to sit for photographs had obviously made her uncomfortable, and she fidgeted in place, shifting from foot to foot. "I appreciate what you've said, Hieronymous, but it really is better for me to be 'Not Shown.' I can't really say why that is, but I just seem to know it's true. I know it sounds very silly. Please just humor me this time?"

Grabiner frowned, and stared at her hard, but she just kept smiling awkwardly, so at last he shook his head and threw up his hands.

"It doesn't matter to me whether or not you sit for the yearbook photographs," he said dismissively. "Do whatever you like. It just seemed to me to be something that might give you pleasure, which is why I suggested it."

He had turned away from her, toward the bathroom, and Amoretta laid her cool palms on his bare back as he did.

"Oh, Hieronymous," she pleaded, "Don't be cross with me. I know it's silly, but having my picture taken makes me very, very nervous. I don't think I could stand it, even for you."

Grabiner shook his head and then turned back toward her, letting a broad hand come to rest on the top of her head.

"I'm not cross," he assured her. "Really. You should do what makes you happy. If you don't want to sit for photographs, you don't have to sit for photographs. Just be good enough to inform the photographer that he ought to skip your name when he comes to it."

Amoretta let out a great sigh, and Grabiner was rewarded with a warm hug around his middle as Amoretta exhibited her relief quite tangibly.

He ruffled her hair again, the hair that was already mussed and flyaway from having been slept on all night, and took pleasure in this casual, common contact.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I really am," she said.

* * *

As Grabiner directed, Amoretta politely informed the photographer that she would not be sitting for yearbook portraits, and then enjoyed the day much as she had planned, spending her time with Ellen and Virginia. It was a little lonely to sit by herself on the grass as the rest of the freshman class arranged themselves on the front steps of the academy for their class picture, but it was easy to hold onto her resolve when she reflected on the anxiety she had felt earlier, when she worried Grabiner would press her into having her picture taken because it was 'proper conduct.'

Of course, now that she reflected on it, she realized she oughtn't have worried at all. Grabiner would have no more forced her to sit for photographs when it really and truly worried her than he would have demanded that she carry all the books in the library on her back. He didn't like it when she broke rules (his own, or the school's), or otherwise endangered herself, but sitting for photographs was a purely personal choice. He would not push her to do something that made her obviously unhappy only for the sake of propriety.

Amoretta would be "Not Shown," as she had wanted.

And so she passed through picture day in ease and comfort, enjoying the warm sun and the green grass.

* * *

The morning of May 1 dawned for Amoretta much as many mornings had in the past, although by this point the school term had quite ended, and the only event that remained to close out the year was the end of term dance, the May Day ball. Grabiner was kind enough to let her sleep in for a second day, but at last he roused her, gave her a goodbye kiss, and then departed on business, much as he had on many mornings during the month of April.

Amoretta spent part of the day with Virginia and Ellen, much as she had the day before. She also took the time to visit Minnie Cochran, to help her pack up her things, because the freshman student council president was going home for the summer break like most of the other freshman students. Pastel kept them both company, and helped with Minnie's packing, because the sylph girl was staying at the academy over the summer term.

Pastel didn't seem particularly enthused about the idea, but had apparently resolved to accept her fate. She confided that the fact that Ellen was also staying for the summer made the sentence of a nearly deserted Iris Academy seem less bleak to the social butterfly.

Donald and Luke would also be staying on, partly because their final examination had been stupendous, rather than appropriately successful (owing to a miscast spell from Luke Phifer) but also partly (Amoretta suspected) because Logan had suggested that the two boys stay for the summer. He couldn't be spared from family affairs, he regretted, and this regret was very honest in a face that was usually so carefully controlled. For a brief moment Amoretta thought she saw envy flicker through Logan's eyes when they rested on his more carefree brother, who was planning to spend the summer primarily occupied by getting into mischief and only secondarily occupied by improving his spellcasting.

Amoretta suspected from discussions with Luke that Logan had no such freedom to look forward to when he returned to the family home. Even as a boy in school he had considerable responsibilities, and all his time was carefully scheduled. He never went anywhere unaccompanied, and was always expected to be prompt, well-mannered, thoughtful, charismatic, and reserved no matter the situation. He was the heir to the House of Phifer, and was always expected to present himself as such.

Luke, on the other hand, was the leftover. It was why he was allowed to stay on, that and Logan's gentle  _suggestion_. Luke wasn't sure anybody from the main house would actually miss him, apart from Logan. Similarly, Donald had suggested that his family would probably end up happier if they could just forget that they had a second son altogether.

Donald and Luke had not agreed to stay on at the academy simply because Logan had asked them to. Both of them were anticipating the relief that being liberated from familial judgement and disapproval for four whole months was sure to provide.

"You're lucky you get to stay and have fun all summer," Virginia complained to Donald when she met him in the hallway. "Mom and Dad won't let me stay. They say they can't get along without me. It's going to be really boring with William gone into apprenticeship, although I guess my life'll be easier without  _you_ there."

Amoretta avoided a sibling brawl only by quickly hustling Virginia off, with an assist by Luke, who dragged Donald off in the opposite direction.

* * *

In the early afternoon, Amoretta retired to the room she shared with Grabiner, so as to avoid all the building excitement that was leading to the May Day ball as surely as a yellow brick road.

It wasn't as if she really  _regretted_ the fact that she would not be able to attend the glittering party with all her friends - she might have gone on her own if she liked. Surely Grabiner would have allowed it, although he himself had no interest in the event.

But she wasn't willing to go to the May Day ball without him. He was her husband, after all, and she loved him more than she loved the sun. She wouldn't go to the ball unless she had the opportunity to show him off, like a peddler exhibiting masterwork wares to people who rarely have the privilege of seeing such things.

Of course, the likelihood that Grabiner would abruptly change his opinions on noise and spectacle and suddenly ask her to go to the ball with him was so impossibly small that it was probably best represented by a negative number.

Despite the fact that her grand debut at the ball was a lost cause if ever there were one, if the stars somehow aligned as they did so often in the fiction she was so fond of reading, and Grabiner received a concussion that conveniently altered his personality in such a way that he suddenly became enamoured of parties attended by rowdy high school students, she was at least  _partially_ prepared.

She had had a dress for the ball since Christmas time.

When her father had brought her the dress as a present, Amoretta had thrilled, because it really was lovely.

Even then, she had known in her heart who she wanted to dance with at the May Day ball.

She had not fallen in love with Hieronymous Grabiner  _lately_ , after all.

* * *

Amoretta was sitting at Grabiner's desk, her legs pulled into the chair Indian style, quite engrossed in a book, when she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She didn't really jump, because she was accustomed to Grabiner coming up on her silently, but when she turned her head, what she was presented with most immediately was not Grabiner himself, but rather a trim white box and a bouquet.

In the small box were flowers, beautiful white flowers with five petals each and tongues as red as flame.

"What are these?" Amoretta asked, her mouth opening and closing like a fish, even though it was patently obvious what they were and what they meant about how he intended to spend the evening.

The white blossoms in the little box were set along a comb, so that they could be worn in one's hair.

He had not brought her flowers so she could set them in her hair like diamonds, put on a bathrobe, and then sit up late playing dominoes and listening to Perry Como records.

"Your flowers," he said with a wry smile, and gave over the clutch bouquet to her tentative hands. "They're hawthorn flowers. I hope you aren't offended that I didn't get you something more traditional, like roses or carnations, but hawthorn is the may tree, you know." He looked away briefly. "I'm afraid you'll never have the experience of being the Queen of May, since tradition dictates that the queen is an unmarried woman, but I do hope you know," and here his cheeks colored a little, and he resolutely looked at the floor, as if it were paved in secret alchemic formulas that had to be committed to memory that instant, "I do hope you know that you'll always be the queen of this holt."

Amoretta's flush was as rosy as blood that fell drop by drop into milk.

"Hieronymous," she leaned forward with some intensity, taking hold of the front of his robes and tugging with insistence. "Are you really going to take me to the May Day ball?" she asked, and it was as if the stars themselves were captured in the mirror of her sparkling eyes. One might have put her in the middle of a planetarium and charged admission for this reasonable facsimile of stargazing.

Looking down at her flushed, pleased face, Grabiner had no more doubts about the way he had chosen to spend his evening.

 _It's worth it,_  he thought.  _A little discomfort is worth it, to see her like this._

"Yes," he answered her very seriously, although the smallest hint of a smile crept in at the corner of his mouth, because he was enjoying her pleasure a great deal. "Really. I am going to take you to the May Day ball."

Amoretta could not contain her happiness, and it spilled out of her into the air as she brought the bouquet to her chest and twirled around in place.

"Really really and truly?" she asked, as if she still could not believe it.

"Really and truly," he agreed with a serious nod, then he laughed quietly, "Is it so difficult to imagine that I'm willing to take you?"

"It is," she answered with a laugh born of pure, supernal pleasure. "After all, you don't like loud noises and commotion, you don't like being disturbed, you don't like being forced to talk to people you don't like, and  _fun makes you uneasy_ ," she counted all the reasons out on her fingers. "Really, the May Day ball sounds like a kind of purgatory for you."

"I'm willing to go anywhere, so long as I go with you," he said, pausing to brush a stray curl of hair out of her face. "Even into perdition. I will manfully brave the May Day ball for your sake."

Although the gravity with which he made this declaration was clearly feigned for effect, Amoretta bit her lip, suddenly troubled. "But if you don't want to go - Hieronymous, I don't want to make you do something that makes you unhappy - "

Grabiner laid both of his hands on her shoulders and squeezed them gently, careful to avoid the burn.

"I wouldn't go to the May Day ball alone, that's certainly true," he agreed with continued gravity, but then he shook his head briefly, as if clearing away the dust from long unused faculties. "However, I am both proud and honored to escort you," here his smile quirked up at the corner again, "You little scapegrace."

Amoretta smiled again, and it was if the sun in the sky took special care to illuminate only her. She looked very fresh and rosy, standing there with her flowers against her chest, and Grabiner was about to take advantage of her exhilarated joy by pointedly kissing her when she suddenly stepped back, running her hand across her tousled brunette head.

"What am I going to do with my hair?" she wondered aloud, clearly distressed. "I haven't planned anything, since I really didn't think I'd be going to the ball - " She let her eyes come to rest on Grabiner, distracted. "You've known about this for a while, haven't you? A few days at least. Why didn't you tell me sooner? The ball is only an hour away! What on earth am I going to do with my hair?" she repeated again, dancing in place in agitation.

Grabiner was perplexed.

"Why not do what you always do with it," he made a vague sort of mime that indicated she

ought to wear the great mass of her curly hair the way she did customarily, in a mane, thrown rather carelessly down her back. "I didn't tell you ahead of time because I wanted it to be a surprise," he paused. "And you certainly were surprised."

Amoretta was only half-listening to him.

"Hieronymous, I can't just wear it down my back," she was protesting. "Balls are a time when girls wear their hair up," she threw her arms above her head, as if she expected her hair to become some sort of tottering Tower of Babel that stretched its fingers toward the heavens. "I know I could wear it down, and that would be fine, but it's special to wear your hair up," she shook her head, her anxiety obvious as she first squeezed one of her hands and then squeezed the other.

Grabiner was baffled by her distress.

"I beg to disagree with your dubiously informed opinions. Many women wear their hair down when they go to parties or official functions," he said with a brief wave of his hand, as if his own personal experience was a sufficient amount of evidence to change her opinion. "And it is quite becoming."

"I didn't even wear my hair up at my own wedding. If I don't start soon, I'm worried that I'm going to run out of chances," she argued, wringing her hands as she squirmed in place.

"Wear your hair up every day, if you like," he suggested with drawn brows. "I thought you wore it down because you preferred it that way."

"I do prefer it that way!" Amoretta answered, still distracted. "I told you, wearing it up is for special occasions! It wouldn't be the same if I just wore it that way all the time. It wouldn't be special then."

"What about when you wear your hair up under that scarf?" Grabiner hazarded.

"Hieronymous, that isn't 'wearing your hair up!'" Amoretta cried out, mildly scandalized. "You're confusing the Cinderella who goes to the ball with the Cinderella who scrubs floors."

"Oh, I see," Grabiner declared dryly, crossing his arms over his chest, "This is another absurd part of the fully manufactured fairy tale romance that is the product  _solely_ of your own demented brain and has absolutely no relation to reality. If that's the case, then why not ask your fairy godmother to do your hair for you?"

He had clearly meant it as a humorless joke, but Amoretta looked up at him with the shining eyes of a newly born fawn, as if he had just set upon the perfect solution.

"Ah!" she cried out, turning around in place again. "I could kiss you! Why didn't I think of that?"

Although he couldn't say that he'd done much of note, other than encourage her  _worrying tendencies_ , Grabiner was prepared for his terrible wife to kiss him, as promised. Instead, she pressed her bouquet into his hands.

"I'm off to see P. P.," she called over her shoulder as she rushed to the door. Then she apparently thought better of her overly hasty exit, and dashed back toward him with a bashful smile.

Grabiner, most certainly prepared for a kiss this time, was nearly sent spinning by her momentum as she grabbed the boxed hair ornament from his hands.

She was at the door a third time before she turned on her heel again and crossed the space between them in half a moment, standing on her toes and tugging him down to briefly kiss him on the chin.

And then she was gone in a flurry of motion and excitement, leaving him quite alone in their rooms, holding the hawthorn bouquet.

* * *

When Amoretta at last reappeared in the bedroom, Grabiner was already getting dressed.

"You aren't going to wear your big red dress?" she teased.

He was buttoning a white shirt front, and a dinner jacket hung from the wardrobe in front of him.

He rolled his eyes. "It is not a dress. It is a  _robe_. We have had this conversation before."

"I'd just like to point out that 'robe' means 'dress,'" Amoretta said, raising her palms up before her, as if she had no control over the proper definitions of words, particularly loanwords from French.

"You are hilarious," he remarked dryly, the way he always did when he clearly thought she was not hilarious in the least. "And to answer your question, as we are not getting married, christening or saining one of our children, attending a graduation, or a funeral, no, I will not be wearing my formal robes." He paused as his eyes swept over her hair briefly. "You do look very nice," he said. "I suppose your fairy godmother was able to deliver you from your great tribulations?"

Amoretta smiled and nodded, turning around once to exhibit her hair to him fully. It was up in a number of braids that culminated in something like a rose knot at the back of her head. A few curls hung around her face, framing it, and she wore the comb of hawthorn flowers in her hair.

"Didn't she do a splendid job on short notice?" she asked, her face flushing with pleasure. "She said that I'll probably need you to help me dispel it once the evening is over, though. She had to use a lot of enchantments to hold it all in place."

"Like a proper fairy godmother," Grabiner commented blandly as he began to put on his cufflinks.

They had perhaps a half hour before the ball was slated to begin. Amoretta thought it was probably just enough time for her to get herself ready, but then she stopped, overcome by a new difficulty.

"Should I gather my things up and go to a different room so you'll be surprised when you meet me at the ball?" she asked. "I mean, I know you've already seen my hair, and my dress is hanging up in the wardrobe, but - "

Grabiner raised one of his hands idly. By this point he was used to forestalling Amoretta's minor crises.

"As your husband," he said very clearly, "It is my pleasure to never be surprised by your appearance, just as it is yours never to be surprised by mine. We're married. Married people arrive at balls together, not separately," he reminded.

Amoretta's cheeks darkened as she placed her fingertips against her lips. "Oh," she said. "I suppose that's true, isn't it? How wonderful!" she declared, clapping her hands with sheer delight, as if she had just been presented with a basket of kittens dressed in whimsical costumes and a platter of pastel cupcakes.

With that the principal thought in her mind, Amoretta disappeared into the bathroom to finish her toilette.

She left the bathroom door open as she powdered and primped herself, sitting in the desk chair that she hauled into the bathroom for this express purpose.

She did not commonly wear cosmetics, being the sort of dizzy girl who has little time for such things, because she's always in a hurry to go someplace or another, but she did know how to wear them, and had a reasonably good idea of what looked best on her. This was knowledge she had come by through the dedicated study of several authorities on the subject, who had written some books she found to be very useful. This was an evening she wanted to sparkle and glow, to light up a memory she intended to carry with her for a very long time.

_Our first party. Our first ball. Our first dance together?_

Glancing sidelong out the bathroom door at Grabiner, who was hunting somewhat irately for a shoehorn, she wasn't sure. It was a lot to expect, considering how far he had already gone outside of his comfort zone.

She resolved to not push him. The evening had already surpassed her most optimistic expectations. If he simply wanted to stand to one side of the dance floor, giving disparaging looks to the student guests he disapproved of (likely all of them) and bringing her cups of sparkling ruby punch, that would be enough, she thought.

It was a start, and they could go little by little into the future together.

And so Amoretta chattered on like an amiable canary as she 'put together her face,' and Grabiner, who had by now sat to put on his shoes, answered her questions and commented on her observations.

"I really wasn't sure Ellen was going to go," Amoretta was saying, "She's been back and forth over it all spring, but once she heard that you were taking me, she finally agreed to go through with it. I'm glad too," Amoretta said as she carefully contoured her eyelids. "I think she'll really enjoy it! You wouldn't necessarily think it just by looking at her, but Ellen  _craves_ excitement - it just seems like she's mortally afraid of letting herself go and having fun." She shot him a coy, sidelong smile, "Like somebody else I know, maybe."

Grabiner refused to be baited.

"You've already spoken to Miss Middleton?" he asked dubiously. He wasn't sure why he was particularly surprised. Amoretta could spread news like a town crier.

"Sure have!" Amoretta chirped back cheerfully. "She and Pastel and Minnie are all getting dressed together. I went to see Ellen and Virginia before I went to see the headmistress, because I was just bursting to tell  _someone_ that you were taking me to the ball."

"Wonderful," Grabiner remarked with a put-upon sigh. "Now I'm sure the entire student body will be expecting our entrance."

"You are their Byronic hero," Amoretta sang out in agreement.

Grabiner grumbled in response. He said something disagreeable, but Amoretta could not quite make it out, and he was clearly unwilling to repeat it.

"I bet Raven will ask you to dance with her," she teased.

"I'll have to tell her that my dance card is full," Grabiner said, as he came to lean in the doorway to the bathroom, his arms crossed over his chest. He had tied his dark hair back in a neat ponytail at the base of his skull.

Amoretta was sitting in her underwear, daintily dabbing a dark color on her lips.

"Hieronymous," Amoretta said with a fluttering hand, "Don't be silly. Gentlemen don't have dance cards."

"In this day and age, neither do ladies, generally," he said dryly. "You're out of date by about sixty years."

In only her camisole and her panties, it was impossible that his eyes were not drawn to the space on her shoulder that was covered by the bandage. Now the bulky dressing had been replaced by a flat, flesh-colored adhesive cover, but the flesh tone of the bandage was much darker than Amoretta's ghostly pale skin, so it stood out jarringly.

The wound had been better lately. It had not bled much recently, and the burning spells had lessened somewhat, but it remained as hard, difficult evidence: it was a wound that would never heal, not really. It would seep and blister and ache for the rest of her life.

He looked away. It was hard to stare down the material evidence of his failure to protect her.

Amoretta had not apparently taken notice of his discomfort and guilt, because she chatted on idly.

"I think half a dozen girls asked Logan to the dance, but he turned them all down. He's got a fiancee. Can you imagine that?" she was saying, "It's an arranged marriage, I think. It seems so strange, not being able to go to a high school dance because you're already engaged to someone - "

"What a scandal," Grabiner remarked, deadpan.

She waved a feathery makeup brush at him in consternation.

"We're already married, so that's different," she said definitively. "Besides, I decided that I wanted to marry you when I ran into you in the quad the very first day of school, so everything that's happened has really been ideal, as far as I'm concerned."

"Aren't you glib," he snorted, and then moved into the bathroom with her to stoop down and kiss the back of her neck. "I'm glad you had everything already planned out," he said sardonically. "Otherwise, just imagine if things had turned out  _badly_."

"Be careful!" Amoretta swatted at him lightly. "You'll mess up my hair!"

Grabiner drew back, raising his hands in defense.

"I hope the elaborate fondant icing of your girlish rig will allow me to touch you  _at the ball_ , at least," he remarked.

She had finished her toilette and stood up, brushing past him and out into the bedroom.

Amoretta turned back toward him and gave a look of melodramatic alarm, brushing her fingertips against her cheek. "Why, Mr. Grabiner, in front of all those people?"

" _Quelle horreur_ ," he agreed, crossing his arms over his chest again.

"Only if you behave yourself," Amoretta said with a laugh, going over to the wardrobe to fish out her May Day dress, which was still wrapped in paper.

"Who do you think you're speaking with,  _Mrs. Grabiner_?" he demanded. "I  _always_ behave myself."

" _Badly_ ," Amoretta shot back in response, sticking her tongue out at him. "Oh, I've been waiting to say that forever," she admitted jubilantly as she unwrapped her dress, wriggling in place like an excited puppy. "This has been the most marvellous day."

Whatever Grabiner might have said in response to her blithe riposte was cut off entirely when he laid eyes on her dress.

It was a very pretty dress, and just the sort of thing a girl of her age might wear to an end of term dance, although the line and the cut of the dress were very sophisticated, which indicated that it had probably not been bought locally. It was tea length, with a ballerina skirt in layers of silk chiffon, cap sleeves, and a simple square neckline, but it was not the cut of the dress which had caused his brain to stop functioning.

It was the color.

Even in the muted light of the bedroom, its color was rich and deep, with the faint shimmer of gossamer silk.

"Isn't it splendid?" she asked Grabiner, holding it up to herself and twirling around once so the skirt belled out. "Papa said he tried his best to match the color of my eyes. What do you think? Did he do them justice?"

Grabiner shook off his disorientation and coughed to cover his unease.

"It's lovely," he said. "It's sure to suit you perfectly."

"I hope so!" Amoretta said happily, oblivious to his uncertainty. Then she was unzipping the side, asking, "Please help me get into it? There's no way I'll be able to do it on my own."

Grabiner dutifully assisted the three ring circus that was Amoretta getting into her dress, but at last she had shrugged out of her camisole (in a performance that probably would have captivated him totally if he hadn't been so preoccupied) and was safely zipped in. She turned around again in her bare feet, so her dress flared out around her, and she seemed satisfied.

"Now it's just my shoes," she said. "And I'll be ready. With fifteen minutes to spare, even."

"Good," said Grabiner, who had by now fully recovered himself. "Faculty are traditionally announced first, which means we don't have the luxury of being late."

Amoretta dutifully put on her dancing slippers and then stood before him, with her little clutch bouquet of hawthorn flowers.

"Well?" she asked. "Am I suitable?"

"More than suitable," he said as his eyes followed the intricate knot of her dark hair, and the pale curve of her cheek. Her lips were as dark as berries. "You really are beautiful," he said quietly, and her cheeks flushed rosily in response. Then her loveliness apparently exceeded his tolerance for such things, because he continued on, in a somewhat more controlled, authoritarian tone. "For a juvenile delinquent," he finished, and even he knew that he had said it hastily, his own cheeks flushing faintly in embarrassment as he looked away.

Amoretta laughed.

"I'm afraid I'll always be a juvenile delinquent," she admitted. "It's not really something that's going to change, so better get used to it!"

And then he gave her his arm and they departed down the stairs to the ball.

* * *

The east and west walls of the old-fashioned wooden gymnasium were comprised almost entirely of huge barn doors, which usually stayed latched and bolted during the gymnasium's prescribed use as a sports arena. On the evening of the May Day ball, both of the doors were thrown as wide open as they possibly could be, and held in place by potted rose bushes festooned with ribbons. The west door opened onto the stone terrace which stood between the gymnasium and the cafeteria, and served as the formal entrance and exit of the ball, and the east door opened onto a level green space that was often used for outdoor games. Part of this green space had been covered by a wooden dancing floor that extended out the doors of the gymnasium, so there was ample space for the student body to gather and laugh and talk and dance in the out-of-doors, under the new summer sky.

There were fresh flowers everywhere, hanging from the rafters, blooming from glazed pots among the chairs that were clustered in groups around the perimeter of the dance floor, and running like succulent garlands along the tops of the decorative fences that the junior class had arranged to break up the open space at the edges of the dance floor. In addition to all the decorative flowers, the gymnasium's nearness to both the headmistress's rose gardens and the academy's slightly overgrown apple orchard made the evening warm with the opiate scents of spring-becoming-summer.

After having been formally announced to the Queen of May and presented to her court, Grabiner and Amoretta drifted through the interior of the gymnasium, which was slowly filling up as guests arrived. It being very early, most of Amoretta's associates had yet to arrive, although as expected, Grabiner was paid no small amount of attention by the students who had already been announced, mostly juniors and seniors. He handled them all with impressive, albeit slightly  _chill_ courtesy that left Amoretta giggling into the back of her hand.

"You certainly are popular," she observed.

Grabiner shrugged, a brief and noncommittal move of his body. "I suppose seeing me here is like sighting the Beast Glatisant," he said. "This is the first time I've been to the May Day ball since 1991, I think." He frowned briefly, "Perhaps 1990. I'm not altogether clear."

"I would have been four or five then," Amoretta giggled again, because now that it was a certain thing, she positively  _reveled_ in the impropriety of their union. "About ready to start kindergarten."

Grabiner frowned briefly and mimed massaging his temples. "Don't remind me that I've apparently decided to make a practice of  _robbing cradles_."

"Oh, I don't know," Amoretta said, leaning forward winsomely. "I think the cradle made a pretty good show of robbing  _you_."

"Robbed me practically blind," Grabiner agreed with a half roll of his eyes.

At that moment, they had both come upon Rail Finch, who was wearing an old-fashioned morning coat and a bright waistcoat decorated with cheery ribbon. He looked like he might have stepped out of a daguerreotype photograph from another century. Of course, manners dictated that one professor had to talk to the other, and they likely would have anyhow, without prompting, as Grabiner got along relatively well with Finch, despite their dissimilar backgrounds and demeanors.

"It's not often that you grace the May Day ball with your presence, Rail," Grabiner noted.

"Says the raven to the crow," Finch laughed, elbowing Grabiner with some amusement. Professor Finch generally laughed at his own jokes, which was considered tolerable only because his jokes were usually funny. Finch briefly touched the front of his jacket, as if indicating something concealed there. "I came because Petunia asked me to; said there might be a chance of  _uninvited guests_." His eyes fell on Amoretta briefly, and she shivered.

Grabiner saw her shivering and frowned faintly, moving to put his arm around her shoulders.

"A wise precaution," Grabiner agreed.

"I always say," Finch snapped his fingers and it made a sharp sound, like a staff being struck against rock, "That you can never be sure of anything except your own death. You sure as hell can't be sure of what a pissant little prick just getting the feel for his own authority will do _just to do it_." Professor Finch paused to fish in first his left pocket, and then his right, and at length produced a flask, which he offered first to Grabiner, who politely declined. Then Finch took a long swallow from the flask before tucking it back into his pocket. "Petunia told me that the little shit has started signing his letters 'Grand Duke.'" Finch threw his arm out in a dismissive wave, "If he was more honest, he'd sign his letters 'Prima Donna,' instead."

Grabiner tried with great difficulty to choke off the laugh that Finch had elicited with his plain-spoken rambling, but only succeeded in reducing it to a chortle, which he tried to pass off as a cough, raising one hand to his mouth.

Although clearly amused by Grabiner's attempts to cover his laughter, Amoretta was a bit more diplomatic in her response to the other professor. "Professor Finch, you certainly have a very unique view of the world," she said.

Finch looked pleased to receive a compliment. "Truer words were never spoken, little missus Grabiner," he agreed. "And might I add that you're looking as pretty as a bluebird in a peach tree? Makes even a confirmed bachelor like myself reconsider the way he's spent the last seventy years."

"Well," Amoretta laughed, "Maybe you aren't as confirmed a bachelor as you think," she suggested. "Maybe you just haven't found your one and only."

"Are you putting in an application?" Finch baited with a grin.

"I really would, because you are very handsome and distinguished," Amoretta assured him, "But my schedule is full enough as it is," she said, lightly tugging on Grabiner's arm.

"I see that you've discovered one of the carefully kept secrets of your position," Finch said, waggling his bushy eyebrows. "That married ladies are able to flirt with all the old men."

"It really is one of the best things about it," Amoretta agreed with conspiratorial laugh.

Finch slapped Grabiner hard on the back, and it was only the firmness of Grabiner's stance that kept him from being pushed back by the other professor's hearty affirmation of brotherhood.

"Better keep that one close to you, Hieronymous," Finch chuckled. "She's worth more than a gunnysack full of diamonds."

Even Grabiner snorted at that.

"Really Rail," he said, "You have no idea."

Grabiner and Amoretta soon drifted off through the improvised ballroom, because neither of them were being retained as party security, as Professor Finch was. The gymnasium had really begun to fill up, and so Grabiner led Amoretta out onto the open air dance floor, where the air was less warm and close.

It was here that they encountered a shy and awkward looking Ellen Middleton, who was standing by herself and fidgeting in place. She was very pretty in a two tone dress of lavender and periwinkle adorned by fresh flowers, but she was obviously uncomfortable. She looked nearly ready to burst into a manic cleaning fit.

 _I bet she wants to scrub the dancing floor clean,_ Amoretta thought distractedly.  _She's looking at that little black mark on the floor as if she could murder it with borax and ammonia._

But when Ellen saw Amoretta, she looked relieved, and it was as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

"I was so worried you weren't coming," she confessed, grabbing Amoretta's hands and squeezing them. "I've just been standing here in place and feeling like a teapot that no one wants because everyone's decided to have coffee instead."

"How long have you been here?" Amoretta asked in confusion. "I thought we were one of the first pairs allowed in - "

Ellen looked embarrassed. "I asked very nicely, so they let me in early. I guess they got tired of seeing me pacing around the terrace."

At last, Ellen shifted her attention to Grabiner briefly, and he nodded his head to her.

"Miss Middleton," he said simply.

"Professor Grabiner," she responded politely, a slight inclination of her head.

Then she seemed to take the both of them in at last and her cheeks flushed a little.

"You two do look very good together, you know," she admitted. "Not like you make a picture, not like in a storybook, but more - " Ellen struggled to put it into words. "You just seem to  _fit_ together, as if you truly suit one another. It makes me a little jealous," she added with a wry smile.

"Well, if you're interested in an  _academic_ husband, I think Professor Finch may be looking," Amoretta suggested with an impish smile.

Ellen looked ready to fume, "That's the last time I go paying you any sweet compliments, Amoretta Suzerain!"

"Grabiner," Amoretta reminded with a laugh. "Is this the part where we become furious and tear at one another's dresses? One of us could push the other one in a swimming pool. Now  _that_ would be exciting!"

"If there was a swimming pool around, I'd certainly try to push you into it," Ellen agreed with a laugh, her earlier anxiety broken.

"I'd like to remind you young ladies that you are the guests, and  _not_ the entertainment," Grabiner remarked dryly.

Amoretta turned on her heel and brandished her bouquet at him. "And you, Mr. Grabiner, are  _also_ a guest, and not the secret police, so stop attempting to enforce the law."

"He can't really help it," came the voice of an unlikely defender of Grabiner's character, as Virginia Danson appeared from behind them. "It's the way his brain is hardwired. I hope you realize that if you do anything remotely interesting or have any kind of fun over the summer holiday, he's going to give you demerits for it."

" _Miss Danson_  - " Grabiner began crisply.

Virginia raised her hands up as if predicting the arrival of a flash flood. "Here they come," she said, "All the demerits he's been saving up for me."

"It's really a remarkable sort of arrogance you Dansons have, isn't it?" he asked archly, "That you imagine I would rather spend my time correcting your shortcomings, than engaging in my own personal pursuits, particularly as I have already dispensed with my duties for the year."

"I thought giving detention  _was_ your hobby," Virginia said, sticking her tongue out.

"As a hobby, it would be as disagreeable as herding cats," Grabiner said definitively, and Amoretta laughed. "If you're so hungry for demerits, I suggest you go and misbehave in front of Professor Finch."

"No thanks," Virginia said, sticking her tongue out further. "Besides, he doesn't really give demerits. He just whacks you with his stick, William told me." Then she admitted, laughing, "And once he whacked me with his stick in the hallway, when I was doing handstands. He said I was holding up traffic."

"Because the hallway of the main building seems like the perfect place to do handstands," Grabiner observed.

"Well, it got a lot of attention for the sports club," she said. "Which was the whole point."

One of the two bands which had been hired for the occasion of the ball had been playing dancing music since the headmistress had been presented to the Queen of May and had formally opened the event. Several pairs had already taken turns around the floor. Numerous couples were dancing even now to the jazzy song the band was rattling out in snappy 4/4 time. The bands hired for the dance were both proper dance orchestras, full of drums and brass instruments, and with a couple of vocalists besides.

 _I suppose there isn't really any place for a rock band to plug in their amplifiers, even if it were that sort of dance,_  Amoretta mused.

Both the bands were mundane orchestras, and so of course the student body of Iris Academy was on its best behavior, as it always was when mundanes were on the campus. It saved a lot of unnecessary explanations and emergency memory alteration spells.

Suddenly, the band struck up a familiar song, and Amoretta could not help but burst out singing, as she looped one arm around Ellen's middle, and the other around Virginia's.

"Call me  _irresponsible_ ," she sang out, "Call me  _unreliable_ , throw in  _undependable, too_." She laughed as she let both the girls go and spun lightly on one of her feet. "Oh, I'd really like to dance, now."

She cast hopeful eyes on Ellen.

"Would you like to dance with me?" she asked.

Ellen looked as if Amoretta had threatened her with physical violence, and took a half-step backwards, raising her hands in defense.

Virginia rolled her eyes at Ellen's retreat and shrugged.

"I mean, I will, if you want. I'm not too good at fancy ball dancing though," she warned.

Grabiner cleared his throat and offered Amoretta his hand. "If you'd like to dance, I'll take you out," he said.

It was as if the miracles of the evening would never cease.

"Do you really mean that?" Amoretta asked in amazement as she distractedly passed her bouquet to Ellen and tentatively took his hand.

"Well, I'm not cruel enough to  _tease_ you," he said with a wry smile, but then his mouth grew serious again. "One dance," he said. "I hope you understand that you aren't well enough to dance very much this evening. You'll tire yourself out and likely make yourself sick. One dance, and then rest a bit, and we'll see how things go."

Amoretta squirmed in place with nervous energy, then she cocked her head and listened to the music.

"Can you foxtrot?" she asked hopefully.

Grabiner moved forward, closing the space between them. "I trust I won't disappoint you," he said with the calm, steady sort of arrogance that only comes when one is self-assured that one is good at doing practically everything that one finds important (and even things one does not find important, that other people inexplicably  _do_ ).

When Grabiner put his hand on her back, and took her right hand in his left, she unexpectedly balked.

"Maybe we shouldn't dance," she panicked, and made as if to draw back.

He held onto her firmly and did not allow her to escape.

"Suddenly come down with cold feet?" he asked, his lightly, faintly amused. "I'm sure the whole student body is looking forward to seeing the  _dancing dragon_  give a performance, particularly considering the identity of her partner."

"It's not that," Amoretta shifted around awkwardly. "It's that, well, Hieronymous," She squeezed both her eyes shut and confessed her sins as if she had sold out one of her friends for a bag of silver, " _I only know how to lead. I've never followed. I've only ever danced with other girls, and I was always the boy._ "

She turned an upsetting shade of magenta, and probably would have covered her face in shame had he had not had a firm grip on at least one of her hands. Amoretta was mortified by her inability to live up to his expectations. She felt as if he had suddenly discovered that she had eight toes on one foot. She was totally lacking in social graces: a strange, radioactive mutant of the dance floor.

Quite unexpectedly - and remarkably calmly, given his wife's state of distress - Grabiner let go of her right hand and instead took her left hand with his right, asking, "Would you like to lead, then?"

Amoretta, by now on the verge of tears, looked up, thoroughly confused.

"But that doesn't make any sense," she said, "You're the gentleman. You're supposed to lead."

"If you lead," he assured her, giving her hand a gentle squeeze, "Then I'll follow. I don't really give a damn what I'm supposed to do and what I'm not supposed to do. You really ought to be familiar with that by now."

He was smiling at her, a smile that she recognized, even if no one else was equipped to do so. It was brief, quiet, and warm.

Amoretta sniffled a little. "But we'll probably look really silly - " she protested weakly.

"We won't look silly," he corrected her. "We'll look uncommon, and that's certainly what you are:  _uncommon_."

"I'm  _bizarre_ ," she lamented, and it was as if all her strangeness had caught up to her at once, and was demanding she be ashamed of it.

"You're  _you_ ," he denied gently but firmly. "The only you there is, the only you I would ever wish for."

" _Barfola_ ," Virginia interjected loudly, from where she stood on the sidelines. "Either dance or go get a room. Stop having kodak moments everywhere.  _It's totally gross._ "

This final push from Virginia cleared away the last of Amoretta's doubt and self-pity. She turned to her redheaded roommate to quite deliberately stick her tongue out (Virginia, to her credit, responded in kind), and then led Grabiner onto the floor. During the course of their difficult conversation the song she had sung so lustily had ended, but fortunately another brisk song suitable for the foxtrot had begun, and Amoretta steered them onto the floor as the orchestra played on _._

True to his word, Grabiner followed where Amoretta led. He followed well, and after a moment of nervousness, she led very well. The foxtrot they danced together was of the casual, social type, not the least because Amoretta had learned to dance the American foxtrot, while Grabiner had learned the English, but despite this mismatch in styles they moved together with only very slight physical cues, and altogether, it came off very well. They weren't particularly flashy, with flourishes and twinkles and swings, but they did seem very confident and comfortable together. Although Amoretta had agonized over the idea that people would stare at the two of them because she led and her much taller husband followed, very few members of the student body could actually discern that she was the one doing the leading and that he was the one following, particularly when they were traveling backwards.

Instead, the reason that students stopped and stared was most certainly the fact that they were being offered the rare and unheard of chance to see Hieronymous Grabiner  _dancing_.

As the dancers on the floor realized that Grabiner was on the floor with them, they gradually withdrew, until as the song finished, Grabiner and his wife were alone on the outdoor dance floor, underneath the lights that hung, strung from tree to tree.

At the close of the dance, they were greeted with applause from the thoroughly entertained student body, who cheered and clapped and whistled. Grabiner rolled his eyes devastatingly and brushed his hand across his temples before leading his wife from the floor. Amoretta, more enthusiastic about the response of the crowd, blew kisses at them as Grabiner dragged her away.

Of course, as soon as they were off the dance floor, Petunia Potsdam herself appeared, looking like a late cherry blossom on her pink organza gown.

"You certainly have wrought miracles," the headmistress congratulated Amoretta. "I never thought I'd see Hieronymous dance at the May Day ball again," she said, rapping her dainty fan firmly against her open palm.

"Again?" Amoretta asked, leaning forward curiously. "Does that mean he's danced at the ball before?" she asked in wonderment.

Grabiner felt it necessary to forestall Amoretta's curiosity by answering the question himself. "Once," he said. "The last time I attended. But that is a story for another day," he said crisply, before dragging Amoretta away from the headmistress, and back toward her friends.

The headmistress cheerfully waved them goodbye, although it was obvious she intended to keep at least one of her eyes on them, no matter where they went.

The rest of the evening passed very easily, as parties often do when one is having a very good time. After a rest, Amoretta danced one dance each with first Logan Phifer, and then his brother Luke. Each time she went out, Grabiner cautioned Amoretta's partner that she was only allowed to stay out for one dance, and his eyes never once strayed from her when she was out on the floor. He watched her because it was personally enjoyable to see her having such a good time, and also because he wanted to be sure he noticed the first signs of her fatigue. Miraculously, because Amoretta led, there were no terrible tragedies on the dance floor when she danced with Luke, despite grim predictions from Donald.

Aside from requests for Amoretta's hand, Grabiner politely rebuffed Raven Darkstar, when, as Amoretta predicted, she turned up to request a dance from him.

After another spell of resting, Grabiner took Amoretta out again briefly, and then Professor Finch arrived, declaring that the headmistress had sent him to enjoy himself a bit. He demanded the pleasure of dancing with Amoretta himself.

"You see, my dear," he said with a laugh, "Other than Petunia, you're the only girl here I can properly ask to dance with."

Hearing Professor Finch call Petunia Potsdam a girl was enough to make Amoretta giggle, and she agreed to dance with him immediately.

This time it was Ellen who gave a stern warning.

"One dance only, Professor," she said, clutching Amoretta's bouquet of hawthorn flowers to her chest, "And then you must bring her back. Nothing too outrageous," Ellen warned. "She gets tired easily."

Professor Finch gave a short bow, covering his heart with his hand and answered, "Yes, mother," very grandly, gave the astonished Ellen a wink, and then offered Amoretta his arm.

While Ellen stood there flabbergasted, Grabiner shrugged, putting his hands into his pockets.

"That's Rail," he observed, to no one in particular.

Despite all of Ellen Middleton's warnings, Rail Finch did not 'take it easy,' with Amoretta. Although she was initially reluctant, after a few false starts, and a little correction, he led her through the very spirited Lindy Hop, and Amoretta came back to the little group with blazing rosy cheeks, quite out of breath.

"Get yourself better, girl," Professor Finch said with a pat on her uninjured shoulder, "And I'll take you dancing again. You've got more spirit than a thunderstorm, and I like that."

Then, before Ellen had time to lecture him, he departed with another bow.

"What an irresponsible person!" Ellen declared, as Amoretta took possession of her bouquet again.

"Don't be too sure about that," Grabiner said with a half shrug, and then brushed his fingertips briefly over one of Amoretta's shoulders, and then the other. There was the pale, dewdrop sparkle of a dispel as he did so.

"He had monitoring spells on her!" Ellen realized, opening and closing her mouth rapidly as she assimilated this information.

"Two different ones, yes," Grabiner answered, as Amoretta leaned on his arm, catching her breath.

"But I didn't even see him casting anything!" Ellen protested, shaking her head.

"That's because Rail is a  _professional_. If there's one duelist at this school better than I am, then it's Professor Finch," Grabiner said, moving to put his arm around Amoretta's shoulders, so she could lean on him more easily. "He cast those spells on her when he was showing her the steps, at the beginning of the dance."

"Did you notice, Amoretta?" Ellen wanted to know, but the short brunette shook her head.

"No," she admitted. "He touched me a couple of times, but all I felt was this really light tingling. It could have just been the warmth of his hand."

"He subverts his runes," Grabiner remarked in passing, and then repeated, "The man is a professional."

"He's certainly a professional at getting Ellen's panties in a bunch. I really thought you were the only one who was good at that, Grabby," Virginia noted, which caused Ellen to flush darkly.

Amoretta had to hold her bouquet out of reach when Ellen grabbed after it, clearly intent on using it to swat at Virginia.

After this little episode, they ate some party food and drank some punch in comically small cups, and then Amoretta managed to cajole Ellen onto the periphery of the dance floor, where she gave her some brief lessons in the foxtrot, and managed to dance with her for half a song, which was good for Ellen's first try, Amoretta thought.

It was by then the shank of the evening, and Amoretta was enjoying the euphoria of having had a very full day. The ball would go on for perhaps another two hours, but they were all gently gliding along the downward slope at this point. She stretched, arching her back and letting her slender arms cross above her head, and then slouched against Grabiner again, who absently put his arm around her shoulders.

But then suddenly Amoretta stood bolt upright, because through the open doors of the gymnasium she could see a very familiar figure casually waiting to be announced, his hands in his pockets. Before she could even rightly put together what she was doing, she was shaking Grabiner's arm and trying to stammer out a warning.

But before she could get out what she was desperately trying to say, the mysterious interloper's name was boomed out across the ball by the secretary of the junior class, who was acting as announcer, and this proclamation startled everyone on both dance floors into silence because a name hadn't been announced in well over two hours.

"May I present," the secretary called with some enthusiasm, "Noir Suzerain!"

And then before Grabiner could do anything to stop her, Amoretta was running toward this new figure with open arms, crying, "Papa!" with wild delight.

The tawny, dark-haired gentleman caught her in his arms and twirled her around in the middle of the dance floor as if she might have been a girl of three. He was remarkably good-looking - as if he were a cross between James Bond and the Marlboro Man. He had come in black tie, and looked lazily comfortable, despite the formal state of his dress.

"Good lord," realized Grabiner, bringing his hand to his forehead in a sign that could only communicate pure, unmitigated distress of the highest order.

"It's her  _father_."

* * *

After the immediate shock of Noir's arrival to the party - like a grenade thrown into a trench onto unsuspecting soldiers - had faded, Grabiner was -  _for once -_  relieved that Petunia Potsdam descended right into the middle of his business. She arrived like a queen from on high, and took custody of Amoretta's father before he could ask any upsetting questions, dragging him quite bodily off to "have a little chat with her."

Feeling harried by all the attention they were receiving after her father's spectacular arrival, Grabiner suggested that they take a walk in the gardens. The gardens were sure to be more quiet than the ball itself, although Grabiner suspected they would not be  _entirely_ deserted, as paramours struggled to squeeze a few last ounces of fulfillment out of the school term before it ended.

As Grabiner walked through the dark rose gardens with Amoretta on his arm, he could not help but feel perplexed, turning all number of thoughts over and over in his head as he struggled to put them together.

"What I don't understand," he said, shaking his head, "Is what possessed your father to visit the campus  _at all_ , let alone  _now."_

"Well," Amoretta admitted sheepishly, "I imagine he came to visit because I finally wrote to him and told him I had gotten married."

This brought Grabiner to such a jarring full stop that Amoretta stumbled, and had to hold tightly onto his arm to recapture her balance.

"You did  _what_?" he asked her very quietly, but Amoretta could tell she had lit the fuse of his temper.

"Well, he is my father," Amoretta explained apologetically. "I thought he had a right to know."

"And you didn't consider how this might cause - " he paused very weightily, " _Complications_?"

"Not really," Amoretta said. "It's what I decided to do with myself, so I knew he'd support my decision. Besides," she said with a smile, "Now I have the pleasure of showing you both to one another, and that makes me really happy."

"Damn it, Amoretta, we're not goldfish, or fat little pug dogs," Grabiner complained, turning his back on her to run his hand through his hair in frustration. "Even if he somehow miraculously doesn't find anything peculiar about his sixteen year old daughter being married to a man who's twice her age, his memory will still have to be altered, because he's just broken in on an end of term dance at a _school full of witches_."

Amoretta fluttered her hands briefly. "Oh, don't be so melodramatic, Hieronymous," she said. "I mean, we have regular people on campus all of the time, and their memories aren't altered - like the guests who come for the plays, and then the band tonight. Besides," she said, looking rather smug, "I shouldn't worry about it, because papa already knows I'm a witch."

Grabiner turned around incredulously and demanded, "Would you care to explain yourself, young lady?"

Amoretta shrugged. "Well," she said simply, "I've been sending him letters like clockwork ever since September. Only once we made the gimmal oath," she shifted around, a little embarrassed, "Well, I didn't send him any letters for a while, because I wasn't sure how to explain myself. I hadn't told him anything about getting married to you in January, because you had warned me not to, but after the oath, well, everything became very  _permanent_ , didn't it?" She shook her head, and looked down at the ground. "I knew I had to tell him eventually, but I wasn't really sure  _how_ , so I kept putting it off."

"Are you telling me that you've willfully broken the velvet curtain on multiple occasions?" Grabiner asked, and the pit of his stomach felt very cold. "Do you realize how serious an offense this is Amoretta? If the magistrates ever get wind of this - "

But Amoretta was already waving her hands mildly. "Oh, I haven't broken the velvet curtain," she assured him. "Papa's never been affected by it, you see. I was very careful at first, but then he was always asking me in his letters how I was doing, learning magic, so well, I just started telling him everything."

Grabiner felt very light-headed. If Professor Finch had appeared with his hip flask at that particular moment, Grabiner would have accepted a drink gladly.

"Clearly," he admitted after some moments of thinking, "Things concerning you are not precisely as they seem."

"What do you mean?" she asked curiously, tilting her head to the side.

"You're likely not really a wildseed," Grabiner said, bringing one hand thoughtfully to his chin. "If your father isn't affected by the velvet curtain, and he's not a dimidium, then he's clearly a wizard himself."

Amoretta laughed at this, shaking her head. "I told you," she said, "He's a gambler, not a wizard. Don't be silly. Anyway," she wondered, "What's a 'dimidium?'"

Grabiner was only half paying attention to her when he answered, "It's an individual who belongs to a family that lives behind the velvet curtain, despite their low or completely nil magical capacity. They're usually employed as servants in the houses of wealthy witches and wizards, or otherwise to do labor that the Witch World requires, but that no witch or wizard really wishes to do. They're held accountable by the same precepts of secrecy as witches, but do not enjoy all of the rights, which is why they're granted the status of 'dimidiums,'" he said, "Half citizens. My nurse was a dimidium. So was Button," he finished absently. "There aren't that many of them in the Free Nations because the society here is considerably more egalitarian. Even witches with negligible magical capacity enjoy the same full legal status as citizens here."

As Amoretta digested this information, Grabiner at last shrugged.

"I'm sure more of it will become clear when I speak with him tomorrow," Grabiner said with a sigh. "I doubt the headmistress will allow him to harass us this evening at least, which is some small blessing."

"You sound as if you expect him to rake you over hot coals," Amoretta teased, and Grabiner made a noncommittal sound, giving her his arm again.

"That is precisely the treatment I am expecting," Grabiner admitted.

"Don't worry," Amoretta reassured him. "My father is a very nice man."

"That has very little bearing on how he will treat an unannounced, unapproved, and uninvited son-in-law," Grabiner remarked dryly.

"I like you," Amoretta said decisively, "So I'm sure  _he'll_ like you."

"You're very optimistic," Grabiner noted as they entered the quiet darkness of the old apple orchard.

Grabiner was relieved to discover that there were no students secreted away here, enjoying more clandestine pleasures, because it meant he could speak privately with his wife.

"I am very optimistic," Amoretta agreed, nodding her head. "And generally it serves me pretty well."

Grabiner sighed, and looked up at the sky. The night was dark and filled with stars. The world was bathed in very old light.

"I really do love you quite horrendously, you know," Grabiner said quietly. "So much so that sometimes it feels as if I can barely stand it, as if loving you is a bad habit that will someday kill me as surely as if I were a committed smoker."

Amoretta threw back her head and laughed. "What is it with this awful word choice in describing our relationship?" she asked. "First abhorrently, now horrendously," she said, shaking her head. "Why can you say something like, "I love you more deeply than the deepest ocean!" she declared melodramatically, throwing her arms open.

"Because that sounds like rubbish and means about as much as the sentiment that comes packed in a box of drugstore chocolates," he said with some disgust, waving her off. Then he paused and raised an eyebrow. "And just what do you mean by  _'first_ abhorrently'? I don't recall ever having called anything about you 'abhorrent,' although I suppose now I'll have to file it away for future use."

Amoretta flushed and squirmed a bit. "That's what Kavus said," she admitted. "When I asked him for his opinion about our relationship. He said that in his opinion, you loved me 'abhorrently.'"

"How pleasant," Grabiner said, crossing his arms over his chest. "And when did you chance to ask him this?" he prompted.

Amoretta squirmed again and looked away.

"The day after we made the gimmal oath," she said in a small voice. "In March."

Grabiner was silent for a moment, and then at last said, "I see."

Amoretta mildly panicked, stumbling over herself to try and explain. "I was just trying to prove a point to Virginia and Ellen - "

"You asked Kavus this question in front of Miss Danson and Miss Middleton?" Grabiner asked incredulously.

"Well," Amoretta said, toeing the ground shyly. "Yes."

Grabiner sighed and threw his hands up briefly.

"No wonder Miss Middleton has always been so dubious about my intentions," Grabiner complained to the night air.

"Well, your intentions  _are_ dubious," Amoretta supplied helpfully.

He shrugged. "I suppose you're right," he admitted. "If they weren't dubious then, then they're certainly dubious now."

"Oh, they were dubious then," Amoretta laughed, and it was a sweet, comfortable sound. "Otherwise you wouldn't have made the gimmal oath with me."

"You really are a wicked thing," Grabiner said with a sigh of exasperation. "Perhaps you haven't heard," he said, moving to put his arm around her middle and draw her close to him, "But magicians do not like to have their secrets revealed to the audience."

"Hieronymous," she said declaratively, with an impudent smile, "Perhaps  _you_ haven't heard, but it isn't a secret if everyone knows it  _already_."

The apple orchard was fragrant with the sweet scent of new blossoms and the musty, familiar scent of the old earth.

And then, as the stars turned slowly overhead, painting their streaks of light against the night sky, she kissed him under the cool light of the May Night moon.


	19. Epilogue: The Prerogative of the Brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
> 
> Mahatma Gandhi

The morning of May 2 was mild and pleasant, although Amoretta experienced very little of it herself. A combination of the unexpected excitement of the day previous and the overwhelming relief of having at last put her freshman year successfully behind her had left Amoretta completely exhausted and she slept in, undisturbed, until nearly noon. It might have rained doubloons or chocolate drops that morning, and she would not have been the wiser.

She was having a very silly dream about chasing a small dog around a grassy yard and not having much success at catching him when she slowly drifted into wakefulness. She was burrowed under the blankets at Grabiner's side, curled up like a rabbit in a nest, with a face full of his pajamas. It was very warm and pleasant and comfortable: the sort of commonly disregarded paradise that is always within the reach of mortal hands. It was very difficult to work up the gumption to move when one was experiencing this kind of personal nirvana, but at last she yawned as she pushed herself out from under the blankets, because the promise of a new day standing open and interesting before her was more tempting than drowsing, even drowsing by Grabiner's side.

He was already awake, sitting up in bed with a book open in front of him. The curtains were drawn and the room was still very dim, but a witchlight hovered directly over the pages as he paused to turn one.

"Hieronymous," she indicted sleepily, "You ought to turn on a light. You'll ruin your eyes."

He didn't look up immediately as he answered, "Not and chance waking you up." He paused, carefully marking his place in his book, although he did not yet close it. "I've been reading this way for years. I'm hardly going to stop now, no matter what you may think about it."

She spied the title of the old book in barely legible print along the spine. He was reading  _Bleak House_.

"Dickens?" she asked with an impudent smile. "I thought you didn't care for Dickens."

"I don't," he answered shortly. "I've just been ruminating all morning on how convenient it would be if you were an orphan. It would be tolerable enough if you were a ward of Chancery, but much better if you had absolutely no one to consider you at all. That would be the most pleasant circumstance, I think."

This caused Amoretta to burst into unexpected laughter, throwing herself on him so he had to hold the book out of the way lest she do it irreparable harm with her less-than-effective wrestling techniques.

" _Hieronymous_ ," she complained, laughing as she struggled with him, "That wouldn't be pleasant  _at all._ "

"It would be pleasant for  _me_ ," he pointed out as he put the book on the side table so he could devote his full attentions to her, "And it would make things considerably simpler."

Their brief tussle, slightly hampered by the fact that they were still tied together, ended with her flushed and breathless, pinned underneath him.

She didn't seem completely distressed by the situation, however, as she volunteered cheekily, "I hate to break it to you, but Esther doesn't marry John Jarndyce in the end. It's really very depressing. I was extremely disappointed."

"You would be, naturally," he remarked dryly.

"She can be so twee and utterly dreadful," Amoretta laughed, "Even though when she's not being moral and aloof she is generally likeable. But I really can't imagine how she lived so long in John Jarndyce's house without realizing that he was stupidly in love with her. I should have known immediately," she finished archly.

"Of course you would have," Grabiner said with a snort. "You do realize that the sweeping romance is supposed to be between she and Allan Woodcourt, don't you?" He continued on in melodramatic narration, "He who loved her even after she was scarred by smallpox."

"I suppose he ought to get a medal for not being atrociously horrible then?" she asked, sticking her tongue out. "Besides, Mr. Jarndyce loves her even after she's had smallpox too. I think he's more honest," she said decisively, then at last admitted. "Besides, I think Allan Woodcourt is insipidly boring."

"The dashing, handsome young doctor with the poignant social conscience who returns as hero of a terrible shipwreck?" Grabiner asked with a bemused chortle. "What more could one ask for?"

"He's exactly who she  _ought_ to marry," Amoretta answered immediately, making a face as if she'd inadvertently put something sour in her mouth. "Which means I can't stand him at all. I don't like heroines who do as they ought to. I like heroines that do as they absolutely  _shouldn't_ and marry whomever it is that they like best. Allan Woodcourt is awful because he's nice and handsome and vague and pleasant. He has no bad habits to recommend him, nothing that makes him particularly human or interesting. Mr. Jarndyce is sweet and funny and kind, but he's not very good at saying what he means, he's easily embarrassed, and he gets growly, but from the beginning he treats Esther with respect and kindness. I like Mr. Jarndyce because to me, his love is worth more than Allan Woodcourt's." Having finished her little diatribe, Amoretta added pertly, "I don't like Mr. Woodcourt because he isn't moody and depressed enough," She raised a slender finger. "I only like men who are moody and depressed, who say cutting things that they don't really mean, who are generally disliked because their secret natures are not very well known, and who feel ardently that love which must never be spoken. I mean, until they speak it, because they'd better speak it  _eventually_. Even if they're a little unwilling at first, eventually they come around because it is the job of the heroine to be absolutely irresistible. The part where they come around is very satisfying. The part where  _you_ came around was certainly satisfying, although I am still waiting for you to answer for all those promises you make every time you kiss me. I have a very powerful desire to break quite a lot of laws," she volunteered candidly, and while she meant to remain as regal as a queen after this declamation, the hint of an impish smile played at the corner of her mouth, and soon she had collapsed helplessly into laughter again.

"I could throttle you, you little demon," he complained, because she was clearly enjoying a laugh at his expense. "How on earth did you get to be so absolutely wicked?" he demanded, his face a mixture of amusement and mild vexation.

"A  _lot_ of practice and a never say die attitude," she said definitively, still giggling.

At that moment, to the both of them, the world seemed very young and full of mysteries and undiscovered entertainments.

Grabiner leaned down and kissed her very deliberately, enjoying the rush of euphoria that came when she playfully opened her mouth and he could feel the warm, inquisitive  _intrusion_ of her tongue. They were no longer strangers getting acquainted, after all, even if things had not yet developed much  _past_ this layer of entanglement. He had no real opposition to her desire to break any number of Vermont laws, but he did feel that there was a time and a place for everything. The lazy morning after a late night of dancing and walking under the moonlight with one's funny, irrepressible paramour seemed a very appropriate time to begin exploring previously forbidden pleasures. He had put her off for quite a long time, but there was really no reason to put her off any longer, and as he drew back to look at her damp lips and the pale line of her neck Grabiner experienced a rush of the nearly forgotten pleasure of opening a longed-for present on Christmas morning.

The fingers of their bound hands were already laced together as he pressed her down against the mattress, but he had no notion of where her free hand was until he felt it slipping along his back in a curious, exploratory manner, skin-to-skin, underneath his pajama shirt.

This was developing  _rather well._

Things were developing  _so well_  that naturally, they were interrupted by a smart knock on the door.

Grabiner did not roll off of her immediately, but instead turned his head to regard the door with genuine displeasure.

He didn't move. Clearly he was considering his options.

At last the voice of the headmistress was heard, a bit muffled, from the other side of the door.

"You had best open this door, Hieronymous, or I will open it myself," she warned.

Grabiner let out a sigh that indicated he believed he was the victim of individually tailored persecution, then raised his voice to answer her.

"One moment, madam," he said. "Let me just," he paused, glancing down at the flushed and obviously disappointed Amoretta, who silently rolled her eyes. "Arrange myself," he finished with a raised eyebrow at the girl who lost herself in a fit of mad, silent giggles at this last statement.

He rolled off his wife, who was still in paroxysm of giggles, and began industriously working at the knot at their wrists.

"After all, if your father happens to be on the other side of that door alongside the headmistress," he said lowly to her. "I'd rather not have one of the first impressions he has of your new position in life you being _tied up_ in some manner or another, even if it is for wholly practical reasons."

"I don't know," Amoretta teased, as she recovered herself, "I think it's a very honest impression."

"Yes," he said frankly, "It probably is, although in your youth you do not yet realize that it is not always prudent to be honest. Sometimes," he intoned, at last untangling himself from the ribbon, "Discretion is considerably wiser than honesty."

Even as Grabiner opened the door, Petunia Potsdam brushed past him, although she had not been invited, moving easily into the center of the room, where she regarded the both of them with a slightly exasperated smile.

"Of course, you would still be in bed, even with it nearly being the afternoon," she said with an idle wave of her hand. "Such are the pleasures of a well-spent youth."

"Do you actually have some business with us, headmistress," Grabiner asked dryly, as he shut the door behind him, "Or did you just come by for a social call?"

Petunia Potsdam tilted her chin down and gave Grabiner a look that said more eloquently than words that it was good for his continued health that she found his caustic personality amusing.

"Perhaps it's simply slipped your mind, Hieronymous," she began very pleasantly - with a smile so jolly any girl scout would have been impressed - but as she continued her voice grew slightly brittle, as if she had been much harried by recent events. "But I have been entertaining Amoretta's father since a little after midnight last night. When you didn't turn up at breakfast, I made some polite excuses for you, but I cannot keep making up excuses  _all day long_. The man's questions are  _unerring_ , and I'm simply not creative enough to keep this up for much longer!" the headmistress said, throwing up her hands.

Amoretta was unused to seeing the headmistress thrown into a flurry for any reason at all, and while she sympathized with her discomfort, having had some small experience with her father, she found the unflappable woman's distress incredibly  _interesting_ , and so she watched on, like a fascinated naturalist.

Grabiner was not entirely convinced by the headmistress's display.

"Don't be so modest," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at her impassively. "I'm sure you're creative enough to continue making up excuses for another three or four days at least," he said, and she gave him another  _look_. He placed one hand mockingly over his chest and gave her a short bow. "Madam," he said, "I have great faith in you."

Grabiner was quite ready to put the screws into the headmistress, as she had yet again spoiled a thoroughly engaging tête-à-tête between he and the nubile Mrs. Grabiner with her ill-timed arrival. If she was going to insist on badgering him every time things began to get pleasantly warm, then he was going to twist the knife as hard and as often as he could. It was the sort of temper he had.

Petunia Potsdam might have actually retaliated at this remark and given Grabiner something to remember for his rudeness and his ill temper, as she was feeling slightly drawn out, but in this circumstance Grabiner was fortunately saved by the excellent observational powers of his wife. Amoretta's close study of the headmistress had resulted in an unusual realization.

"Headmistress - " she said.

"Petunia," the lady reminded her, briefly looking over her shoulder at Amoretta to give her a familiar smile. Although she was angry at the gentleman, the lady had done her no harm.

"Petunia," Amoretta agreed distractedly, then leaned over the side of the bed to get a better view of the headmistress's feet. "You're not wearing any shoes," she said. "Or any socks."

Petunia Potsdam looked down at her bare feet distractedly, and then waved Amoretta off a little hastily.

"Well, it is the season for it, my darling," she said.

 _Is she blushing?_  Amoretta wondered.

But both Petunia Potsdam's anger and discomfort was gone almost immediately as she plowed forward into topics that she found more immediately relevant to the situation than her lack of footwear.

"All that aside," she was saying, "Because I  _certainly_ have your best interests at heart, my own turtle doves," she said, turning first from Grabiner to Amoretta, "I have taken it upon myself to arrange a little outing today, so we can all pass the time together pleasantly. We're going to have a picnic," she said, and it was clear from the way she said it that there was to be no insubordination.

_They were going to have a picnic, and they were going to like it._

The headmistress was still speaking, "I've had Cook put together a lunch for us, and we'll take it on the green in front of the old school building. To make the situation a little less awkward, I have also invited Miss Middleton. Miss Danson, I am afraid, has already departed the campus with her parents."

"Oh," Amoretta said with mild disappointment, "I did want to wish her goodbye."

"I'm sure you'll have plenty of chances to see her over the summer," the headmistress consoled her briefly. "Her parents don't live particularly far away."

Amoretta nodded.

Petunia Potsdam turned her eyes to Grabiner, who was still standing silently in his pajamas, with his arms crossed sullenly over his chest. He had made no effort to move and dress himself, as if he still entertained some faint hope of continuing with Miss Suzerain at the point where they had been interrupted, if only the headmistress would have the good grace to leave them in peace.

"You had best prepare yourself, Hieronymous," the headmistress warned. "Mr. Suzerain is not necessarily what you would expect - " she shook her head as if clearing it and then began again. "I can't really give you any advice on how to deal with him," she said. "He's - well - he's a very  _unusual_ person."

Grabiner snorted and then idly gestured to the girl who was still sitting in bed.

"Well, I didn't imagine that  _that_ grew up in a vacuum," he said.

Amoretta waved both her hands lightly and blew a couple of kisses, as if accepting adoration from a large crowd.

"Might I suggest," the headmistress said very politely, "That before your new father-in-law, you not refer to your wife using a demonstrative pronoun usually reserved for  _objects_."

Grabiner turned his back on the two women and only growled in response.

* * *

A picnic that Petunia Potsdam  _attended_ turned out to be quite a bit more substantial than a picnic that she merely  _arranged_ , or perhaps it was simply that she wished to give Noir Suzerain a positive impression of her academy, as he was the guest of honor. Amoretta wasn't entirely sure that all parents were treated to such a grand reception when they visited the school, but perhaps her situation was unique.

She had celebrated the beginning of her second freshman term by marrying her professor, after all.

Crisply painted white patio furniture had been arranged on the green in front of the picturesque ruined building, along with a buffet table that had plates and plates of sandwiches, cut fruits, and other picnic niceties. It really wasn't so much a picnic as it was a _garden party_ , in her estimation.

Amoretta elbowed Ellen in the side as she picked up a pretty china plate with cabbage roses painted on it. "It looks like she's ready to feed the whole student body, or maybe the Harlem Globetrotters," she whispered, "Not just the five of us. Do you think she expects some other guests that we don't know about?"

Ellen shrugged in response. "I haven't a clue," she admitted. "Although it is a very nice day for a picnic, and this is a very pretty place to have one, we could have easily eaten on the patio outside the cafeteria, rather than haul everything all the way out here. I don't always understand why she does the things that she does," she said. "But isn't excess one of the rules of throwing a party? it's better to have too much food than to have too little."

Even given her limited experience as a hostess, Amoretta new that Ellen was correct. It was always better to have too much than to have too little when there were guests to feed. The spread was quite delightful, in any case. There were four different kinds of muffins, and six different kinds of jam, five different kinds of tea sandwiches, a beautiful cut fruit arrangement, and numerous cookies and pastries. Although Amoretta thought that Cook might have been tempted to send them out with some leftover party food from the night before, just to give herself a little rest, all that was arranged for their pleasure was obviously fresh and very carefully prepared.

 _That's the pride of the Cook of Iris Academy,_ Amoretta reflected.  _The morning after a ball she puts together a brunch nice enough for the president._

Both of the girls had elected to wear casual clothes for the picnic, being that school was now officially out. Amoretta wore a skirt and a blouse, but Ellen wore a plaid dress with a matching headband. as if she had dressed herself for church, or the national spelling bee. This had, she immediately recognized, been a calculated mistake. She confessed to Amoretta that she felt as if she were all of twelve years old. Amoretta had reluctantly agreed that the dress and headband combination did not do a great deal to make Ellen look more mature.

"Why did you wear a dress anyway?" Amoretta asked in a whisper as she nibbled on a tea sandwich. "You could have worn blue jeans or something."

"It's my first time meeting your father," Ellen had explained, looking faintly embarrassed. "I wanted to make a good impression."

The headmistress had swooped down on Noir so quickly the night before that Amoretta had had no chance to introduce him to her friends.

 _It's a real shame,_  she thought to herself.  _Ellen was really gorgeous last night. She can be so pretty when she just relaxes a little._

Of course, in her plaid dress and uncomfortable shoes, Ellen was by no means relaxed. Her brows were drawn together, as if she were thinking of something very difficult.

 _She probably wants to wash the china as soon as we're done with it,_  Amoretta realized.  _Or trim the lawn with manicuring scissors._

The headmistress, on the other hand, seemed entirely relaxed and in her element.

She was still not wearing shoes.

Petunia Potsdam was clearly enjoying the feeling of grass between her toes.

* * *

Of course, as much as he might have liked to avoid it, Hieronymous Grabiner rightly knew that he could not escape having a long conversation with Amoretta's father. It advanced on him as inexorably as the coming of bitter winter snows, or a particularly dreaded dental appointment. It could not be avoided. He would have to talk to the girl's father.

Truth be told, he was well aware that up until the present moment, he had gotten off very lightly when it came to the complications of his wife's family. He had not had to ask anyone's permission to marry her, and in fact had not had to deal with his new in-laws  _at all._ He had been laboring under the comfortable delusion that really she  _was_ an orphan, and had no one else to look after her or to consider her but himself, even though he logically knew she had, at the very least, a father, in addition to an aunt and uncle, and a grandmother.

Imagining her orphaned was, he knew, a very convenient fiction. He was jealous, and he was perfectly ready to admit to himself that he was a tyrant when it came to her affections. He honestly did not want to share the responsibility of caring for her with anyone else. He considered her to be his only family in the whole of the world and he experienced a mild degree of angst that he was not also the whole of  _her_ family.

He had taken it for granted that in the witch world she was a functional orphan, even if she was not a literal one. Much as Ellen Middleton, she was a wildseed girl who had decided to fully embrace the arcane world which had unfolded before her, and that meant that for all intents and purposes she had cut her ties with what remained of her family: the farmer, his wife, her grandmother, and the dead orange cat.

One was either before the velvet curtain, or behind it.

There was no area of twilight, where one could be two things at once, even for Amoretta, who excelled at defying odds and overturning expectations.

It was really the ideal situation for him. He had no one to explain himself to, no one to share her with, and no one to question his commitment or the sincerity of his feelings. Grabiner was not the slightest bit guilty that it was patently obvious that he was motivated by selfish desires. He wanted her in spite of what was best for her. He had not meant to love her, but now that he did, he would never give her up, regardless of what anyone else thought, regardless of what they said. That she was willing to be with him was enough. He needed no further warrant.

And if she really had no one else, then there was certainly no one to take her away from him. Due to past experiences, Grabiner suffered from a mild paranoia that something unexpected would happen to separate them, in spite of their wishes to stay together. Their relationship had already suffered considerable turbulence in the form of the devil, the curse burn, and his own reluctance to accept her feelings.

But fortunately for him, she was as orphan as Annie, a regular Pippi Longstocking. The relatives she did have were nothing more than literary figures: the sort of people who only appear in hilarious anecdotes about the past.

On this one point, he could relax his guard.

But then, things had not turned out so simply.

She had a father, an intelligent, direct, damnably  _involved_ father, who was apparently overcome with paternal sentiments once he learned his only daughter was not only engaged but already  _married_ to a man he had never met.

Even if Grabiner still believed he required no one's permission to love Amoretta, he could understand that her father might have a somewhat different opinion on the subject.

It was possible that things would get very ugly. If he could not work things out with Noir Suzerain amicably, then he would do so  _un_ amicably. It was not really a question of what he was willing to do in order to keep Amoretta. It was only a question of what would be  _necessary_ to keep her.

Grabiner had been a duelist since his adolescence, and he was relatively acquainted with the necessity of solving some disputes with magic, but he sincerely hoped he would not have to kill or hospitalize Amoretta's father.

If nothing else, it would be horribly inconvenient, and as Amoretta seemed to be unaccountably fond of her father, his sudden and unexpected demise might put something of a damper on their impending summer holiday. It was not the best manners for the bridegroom to murder the father of the bride right before the honeymoon, even for very good reason.

But Grabiner was a Hades entirely uninterested in negotiation. He would keep Amoretta for twelve months out of the year, regardless of what her father thought about it.

It all came down to a question of how civil they would be when they settled the issue. It would probably not come down to a firefight, but Grabiner was not willing to completely withdraw the possibility from the table. There was always the chance that Noir Suzerain had come to welcome his new son-in-law equipped with a sidearm. He was American, after all, and gave off the general impression that he might, at all times, be packing heat.

The look that Noir Suzerain had given Grabiner across the crowded dance floor had certainly been  _dangerous_ , although then he had suffered being peacefully entertained by Petunia Potsdam for several hours, so there was the chance that his temper had improved.

Grabiner was not altogether hopeful. He would only fight if provoked, but he had a feeling that Mr. Noir Suzerain might be in a very provocative mood.

Although she had declared she could give him no advice on how to handle Noir Suzerain, Petunia Potsdam had briefed Grabiner on what she had discovered about him since the previous evening.

He was certainly a wizard himself, although as he had never received any training as such, he was what the formalized magical community called a 'wilder.' No, he had apparently not been aware of the existence of magic until his daughter had been revealed as a witch. No, the officials that had come to give her the Choice had not detected that he was a wilder wizard at that time because he had not been present. No, as far as he knew, there was no other history of magic in his family.

The way he had answered this last question had been a bit evasive, the headmistress had told Grabiner, but she had been unable to get anything else out of him on this point.

"He's a pure puzzle, Hieronymous," she had told him, a knuckle thoughtfully placed against her lip. "When I examined him," she flushed slightly, "Naturally, he let me when I asked - his magic hadn't been sealed, not exactly, at least, not in any way that I had ever seen before. It's more like it had been  _capped_. I think with a little experimentation I could probably blow him wide open." She was pensive. "The man has a potent capacity for a wilder," she admitted. "He'd probably make a first rate wizard, if he were taught." She paused, and her teeth grazed her bottom lip thoughtfully. "There is something very strange about that family, Hieronymous. I can't really say what it is," she had said, shaking her head briefly. "This will bear further investigation."

She had told him all this in the hallway outside his quarters, after Amoretta had excused herself briefly to 'Say good morning to papa!' despite the fact that it was already early afternoon. Her spirits had been high and she was in a very pleasant temper. Briefly he wondered what she might have said if he had honestly told her he was carefully considering the ramifications of putting her father in a pine box.

Inevitably, she would have disapproved. She was not practical enough to realize that homicide was considerably easier than tense negotiation.

And despite the unenviable nature of his position, Grabiner was rational enough to realize that he had to at least  _attempt_ negotiation, no matter what he thought of his chances of success. And so now, unable to avoid his opponent any longer, Grabiner found himself walking silently with Noir Suzerain.

Amoretta's father was in no apparent hurry. He just sauntered along with his hands in his pockets, occasionally looking up at the sky, as if he worried there might be rain.

Grabiner thought briefly of the advice Amoretta had given him when she rejoined him, taking his arm for the short hike to the old school building.

"Just be yourself," Amoretta had said with a smile, leaning her head against his arm. "And be honest," she cautioned. "He'll get it out of you one way or another, so it's best to pick the easy way, when you can."

Grabiner had studied Noir's back as Amoretta had given him this advice. Her father had made the easy hike in black oxford shoes, chatting idly with the headmistress as he went. He did not really give the impression that he was carrying a gun with a bullet earmarked for his unexpected son-in-law, but one could never be certain. Grabiner was, as a rule, overly cautious.

Now, quite alone with Noir Suzerain, Hieronymous Grabiner would have given much to have the reassuring presence of Amoretta on his arm, but he could not afford her, not even as a lucky rabbit's foot. This was something he had to do himself. If he was to win Noir Suzerain's trust and approval, he would have to do it in his own way.

"Mr. Grabiner," Noir said easily, coming to stand underneath a large fir tree. The shade of the tree made it difficult for Grabiner to read his expression, as subtle as it was. His smile was empty, and it did not reach his eyes.

 _I feel like he's certainly the kind of man who could shoot someone in the face without much sentimen_ t, Grabiner thought to himself.  _Amoretta claims this man is a professional gambler, but I'd be entirely unsurprised to discover that he's actually a contract killer._

Noir made no effort to extend his hand, and Grabiner made no effort to take it.

"Mr. Suzerain," Grabiner answered politely, his arms folded behind his back. He was wary, because he had no idea what to expect from this man, who had apparently baffled even the headmistress.

Without doing anything particularly menacing, without looming or leering, without a threatening move, Noir exerted a strange sort of pressure. This was a  _dangerous_ situation, and her wife's father was a  _dangerous_ person.

"The headmistress saw fit to catch me up on the situation," Noir related calmly. Grabiner watched as his eyes swept across the open space of the green to study Amoretta, who seemed to be narrating some story to Ellen quite animatedly. "It seems a great deal has happened since I saw Amoretta at Christmastime."

"It has," Grabiner admitted, somewhat uneasily. He was not entirely sure what Petunia Potsdam had told Noir Suzerain, and the man's own commentary on said events had given away no tells.

Noir put his hands in his pockets and then asked, point-blank, "Do you love her?"

It was an unexpected question right out of the gate. Ridiculously, Grabiner felt himself flush, and he looked away.

"Mr. Suzerain - " Grabiner began, shortly.

But Noir cut him off. "I asked you a question, Junior," he said levelly, and that drew Grabiner's attention immediately, as if the other man had crisply snapped his fingers. Absurdly, Grabiner felt as if he had been  _called_ , like a dog.

Grabiner frowned, and said nothing.

At last, he admitted, "I do."

"Love her when you married her?" Noir prompted, his eyes still steady on Amoretta.

Grabiner looked away again, because he did not relish being interrogated, but in this case, perhaps what Amoretta had advised him to do would be for the best. He would be honest. He would simply not be particularly forthcoming with additional information unless his father-in-law was determined to bleed it out of him.

"I did," he said shortly, because even if he hadn't been willing to accept it at the time, he certainly had. "Although that's not the primary reason I married her," he added truthfully.

"Bet it's the primary reason she married  _you,"_  Noir drawled out. "She's always been anxious to give her heart to somebody." He glanced at Grabiner sidelong. "Now I'm not saying that she's not particular. She's wicked particular, frankly," he said with a shrug. "But I've never known anybody more bound to love someone than Amoretta. You got lucky, Junior. I hope you understand that."

"I understand that I am very lucky, Mr. Suzerain," Grabiner answered with a slight frown. "She is rare and she is wonderful, and I can't say I have any idea at all why she has settled on me, but the fact is, she has."

"I can tell you why she settled on you," Noir said dismissively. "You looked like you needed it. That kid was always nursing half dead birds, and baby mice, and blind frogs. She was best pals with a three legged skunk. She used to feed it strawberry yogurt from a spoon," Noir pointed sharply at Grabiner. "I bet you didn't know that."

Grabiner owned that he had not.

"She loved you because you looked like you needed it," Noir repeated, shrugging. "That's the way she is. She also seems to particularly like bad-tempered, ugly things."

"Thank you," Grabiner remarked dryly, rolling his eyes.

"You're welcome," Noir said flatly, and then the two men were silent once more.

Noir was clearly turning something over in his mind.

"What would you give up to keep her?" he asked suddenly, as if this were a game of twenty questions.

Abrupt as the question was, it was one that Grabiner could answer very easily. Hadn't he already made an oath bound in blood?

"Anything," he said quietly.

Noir turned to him and studied him silently, his eyes half closed, his mouth an unreadable line.

"That so?" he asked blandly. His implication was very clear:  _words are cheap._ There was something about his wife's calm, relaxed father that was very menacing at that moment. It was a moment when Grabiner felt like a sensible man would have drawn his wand.

And yet, he didn't. Perhaps his wife's lack of sense had begun to rub off on him.

"I said 'anything' and I meant 'anything,'" Grabiner answered, his voice was very cold and controlled. "I have no attachment to my current way of life, none that I wouldn't give up for her safety or comfort. I have no bonds to any other person in the world, save her. She is the most important thing in the world to me. I can understand why you might not think very well of me, Mr. Suzerain, but please understand, if there is one category where I can score tolerably well, it is  _obsessive devotion_. I have already undertaken to kill a devil on her behalf. Frankly," he said seriously, "I'd kill you right now, if I had to, if that meant I could keep her, if I thought you were a credible threat, if I thought you meant to endanger her. I wouldn't enjoy doing it, because she does seem to be fond of you, but I am willing to do what's necessary. I mean what I say when I say it, Mr. Suzerain."

"I don't think she'd like that very much," Noir pointed out. He hadn't moved a muscle or changed expression when Grabiner had threatened him.

"No, I'm sure she wouldn't," Grabiner admitted seriously, but then shrugged. "But she would get over it."

"Would she?" asked Noir, turning his head to look at his daughter again. He was very unemotional for a man discussing his own murder with his new son-in-law.

"She would," Grabiner said with certainty, then continued on, "Because she loves me more than she loves you."

"You sure about that?" Noir wondered aloud, turning his eyes back to Grabiner.

"I'm positive," Grabiner said, his own mouth a thin line. There was no smugness in his tone, no false bravado. He was simply being honest. It was something he could not question. It was something he  _knew_. For good or for ill, if he had piled up half a dozen corpses at Amoretta's feet, she might be appalled, she might disapprove, she might lecture, she might complain, she might strive to reform him, she would certainly correct him if she thought he was wrong, but she would not stop loving him. Confronted with such a scene, she would probably ask him why he had found it necessary to rack up such a body count, and patiently await a logical explanation. Even considering the possibility of multiple homicides, she would give him the benefit of the doubt.

 _Hieronymous,_ she would say, _I hope you have a very good reason for killing so many people, otherwise I'm going to be extremely angry._

Noir looked up into the branches of the fir tree above them and seemed to be ruminating on the certainty of Grabiner's answer.

"How old are you, Mr. Grabiner?" he asked after several moments of silence.

 _Here it comes,_  Grabiner thought.  _Here come all the objections aimed at the very foundation of our relationship. I know it is absurd. I cannot help that it is absurd. I love her, and that is absurd. She loves me, and that is much more absurd._

He closed his eyes briefly.

_But it is also true._

He might have hung himself with a rope made of her hair.

"Thirty two," Grabiner answered evenly, and again refused to volunteer any unnecessary information.

"That's two years younger than I am," Noir answered casually, then continued on. "You make a habit of dating your students, Junior?" he asked blandly, still staring up into the branches of the tree.

Grabiner frowned, but the accusation didn't make him angry, because it was so patently ridiculous.

"Mr. Suzerain, do I  _look_ like a man who makes a habit of dating my students?" he asked dryly.

Noir glanced at him sidelong and then said, "No," and paused before adding, "But it's dangerous to judge based on appearances. Didn't your mama teach you that?"

"My mother never taught me anything," Grabiner answered quickly, almost without thinking.

Noir snorted. "That's the girl's line," he said, pointing briefly at Grabiner again. "Straight from her mouth. Heard it a hundred times if I've heard it once. Well," he chuckled, apparently amused. "At least I know you've been listening to her."

Although Noir had laughed, his smile had not lingered. Grabiner was unsure how to respond and so they both fell silent again.

"Sixteen's awfully young to get married," Noir observed again, apparently to the open air.

"I don't think so," Grabiner answered quietly. "She's old enough to make her own choices, and she has."

"What do you think you have to offer her?" Noir wondered aloud.

"Nothing," Grabiner admitted.

"And you're asking me to give her to you?" Noir asked, with a laugh that had not been meant kindly.

He apparently thought Grabiner was hilarious.

The air around the two men was suddenly very strained, and Grabiner tensed.

The time had come, for good or ill, to decide how this would play out.

"No," Grabiner said, and his voice was very low. "I'm not asking you for anything, because you have nothing to give me," he said. "Amoretta has made her decision, and I have made mine, and that is all that concerns me. Let me be very plainspoken with you, Mr. Suzerain." Grabiner said, and his voice was very controlled again. "I have no quarrel with you. It seems very clear to me that you have your daughter's best interests at heart, and certainly, I would be the first to admit that in  _no_ scenario have I ever been in her best interests. But the fact remains, she has chosen this life, however poor and meager it may be. I respect her strength, her ingenuity, and her resolve. I have very little to give her, but what I do have is hers," he said seriously, and then his eyes fell on Noir Suzerain very heavily. "Honestly sir, if you somehow believe you can dissuade Amoretta from a course she has decided upon herself, you're either incredibly delusional, or you have no real experience with her."

Grabiner was ready for Noir's hard rebuttal, possibly in the form of a bullet, but none came.

Instead Amoretta's father calmly shrugged, and noted, "Sounds about right."

The tension had dropped suddenly to nothing, as if Noir had drawn in his fangs.

Grabiner was baffled.

"How much do you make a year, Junior?" was what Noir asked next, as he had apparently been satisfied by Grabiner's heartfelt monologue and considered the ethical and emotional questions of their marriage settled. He was now only concerned with practical matters.

Caught off guard, Grabiner answered without thinking. "I take home about twenty-seven thousand dollars a year," he said.

Noir looked at him very blankly. "Ms. Potsdam also pay you in paperclips and string?" he asked.

"I do get room and board," Grabiner admitted. He could not say how their discussion had turned into a laundry list of his personal finances, except that Noir had turned it into one, through sheer force of his will.

"Twenty seven thousand dollars a year," Noir repeated, as if he found the figures mystifying. "I think that's below the poverty line."

"It is  _not_ ," Grabiner answered between gritted teeth. "It is a perfectly acceptable income level given my - " he corrected himself, " _Our_  needs."

"Is that the going rate for being a magic teacher?" Noir asked his son-in-law dubiously. "Because if it is, you might want to consider another line of work. I think you might make more managing a service station."

Grabiner frowned and tried to be civil when he answered, although he was clearly aggravated. "I believe Professor Finch makes considerably more than I do, but he is a senior professor and I - " he paused, before admitting, "I am something of a charity case."

"And you don't touch your trust, I imagine." Noir said absently.

Grabiner kept from scowling only with great difficulty, because he did not enjoy having his private affairs aired as if they were public business.

Noir waved Grabiner off, as if he were entirely uninterested in his son-in-law's pique.

"Guessed," he admitted. "The girl told me you didn't get along with your father."

"Our funds are quite sufficient - " Grabiner broke in crossly.

"To  _survive_ ," Noir corrected off-hand, but then he looked Grabiner square in the face, "But not to live comfortably."

"Sir," Grabiner interjected, keeping his temper only with difficulty, "I do not believe you ken how the witch world operates - "

"All worlds run on money, Junior," Noir said with a shrug. "And it's always easier when you've got more of it. You're too cock-of-the-walk to touch your father's money? It doesn't really matter in the long run. The girl's got her own trust fund. Unless you advise her to invest it all in porcupine farms neither of you will ever go hungry," he said.

Grabiner opened his mouth briefly, and then closed it again.

"We're not the Vanderbilts," Noir admitted, "But we get by." He paused, and then observed, "She never mentioned a word of this to you, did she?"

Grabiner shook his head, his mind still turning circles around the revelation.

"She's always talking about some small New Hampshire farmhouse, and her grandmother, and her aunt and uncle, and some awful cat named Pumpkinhead - " he looked at Noir incredulously. "Sometimes I'm not entirely sure she knows how to use her silverware at dinner. Please excuse me for saying so, but that hardly seems like a childhood of wealth and privilege."

"Because she didn't have a childhood of wealth and privilege," Noir answered simply. "She had the same kind of farmhouse childhood I had, because I thought it would be good for her. But ever since she turned ten she's gone to some of the best boarding schools in this country, because that's a thing to be valued: education."

"Yes," Grabiner answered dryly, recovering himself somewhat, "I am vaguely acquainted with the concept."

"But no matter where she went, it never seemed to be a fit with her," Noir shook his head, and his eyes became distant again as he studied her. "She's always been cheerful about it. She's never complained, but I can tell. She's always been an outsider." Noir cast a sidelong glance at him. "That's why I'm glad she came here," he said. "It seems she's finally found a place to belong."

This plain, honest statement gave Grabiner some small amount of relief.

"As a witch," he said, "It's unsurprising that she never really found a place to belong. That's because  _this_ was the place she belonged all along."

"It's not just that she's a witch," Noir noted with a wry, affectionate smile. "You may have noticed, but the girl's a little strange."

"Yes," admitted Grabiner dryly, "I  _had_ noticed."

Noir shrugged again. "That's why I had to be sure you were equipped to deal with her." He paused thoughtfully. "Amoretta's a little in love with everything, and that can be very dangerous."

"So I've discovered," Grabiner said, and looked very put-upon.

"She's an odd little duck, and she takes a lot of care. You think you're up to protecting her?" Noir asked, and Grabiner looked away.

"I - " he started.

"Haven't been doing so hot, have you?" Noir observed.

Grabiner closed his eyes again, and when he spoke, his voice was very quiet. "Mr. Suzerain, I am well aware of my own shortcomings. My first wife - " here his voice broke slightly, and he struggled to master himself, to remain cool and controlled. "My first wife died as a direct result of my own negligence. Amoretta was seriously injured -  _again_ \- as a direct result of my own negligence. With a record such as mine, I do not wonder that you doubt my ability to keep her safe. I make no attempts to defend myself on this score. Whatever things you think of me,  _I deserve_. I can only admit to you that I am  _terrified_ of facing a life without her in it."

If Noir found the revelation that his daughter was Grabiner's second wife particularly striking, he gave no indication, simply accept it without comment, as he had accepted most things Grabiner had said. The muscles between Grabiner's shoulder blades were a knot of tension.

"You're honest," Noir said, and this seemed to satisfy him.

Grabiner watched as Noir patted down his pockets and then fished out a cigarette, which he stuck in the corner of his mouth. The wizard professor was about to offer him a light, when Noir produced his own book of matches, and struck one. He had just lit his cigarette when both of the men were startled by the sudden appearance of Amoretta, whose last known whereabouts had been with Ellen Middleton, about two hundred feet away, near the buffet table.

Without a word of explanation, Amoretta plucked the lit cigarette out from between her father's lips and threw it on the ground, stomping on it several times. When she was satisfied that it was quite out, she picked it up like it was an offensive piece of garbage that ought not be left to litter the fine meadow.

"Papa," she said severely, planting her hands on her hips as she looked up at the tall man, "You know you're not supposed to smoke. You  _promised_ me. It's a filthy habit, and it's very bad for your health."

Noir absently admitted that it was, and Amoretta secured his further promise that he would not attempt to smoke again. Then Amoretta excused herself, giving Grabiner an encouraging smile before moving back toward the table piled with tea sandwiches.

Grabiner watched all of this with a kind of incredulous awe. The dangerous, enigmatic Noir Suzerain had been utterly felled by his petite daughter.

The entire scene had taken place in the span of approximately thirty seconds.

Grabiner could not help but observe, "You're under her thumb." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Noir gave him a calm, sidelong look, and asked, "Excuse me?"

Grabiner's disbelief was colored by his clear amusement. "I think you heard me plainly," he said, and he could not keep from looking faintly smug.

Noir quietly pulled another cigarette out of his pocket and put it into his mouth, but he made no move to light it.

"You'd know, wouldn't you?" Noir said evenly, pausing to look up at the sky.

"I  _beg_ your pardon?" Grabiner asked, feeling incensed. The knot between his shoulders had tightened up again and his nerves felt very frayed. He was half insulted and half appalled.

"You heard me," Noir gave Grabiner's words back to him, then fixed him with his half-lidded, appraising eyes. "You don't expect me to believe that my daughter elected to marry you because she's under  _your_ thumb?" Noir asked with a dry, humorless laugh. "If that's what lets you sleep at night, then please, feel free to maintain the fiction."

"Neither one of us is, 'under the other's thumb,'" Grabiner argued with a severe frown. "We have an equitable relationship based on principles - "

"I heard a lot about how equitable your relationship was in her early letters," Noir observed. "It seems to me that you gave her an unusual number of detentions. She never had a problem with disciplinary actions before she came to this school."

Grabiner could not control his sarcasm as he crossed his arms and said, "I find that _very hard_  to believe."

"You can believe that the sun is green if you like," Noir admitted patiently. "But that doesn't make it true."

" _Mr. Suzerain -_  "

"You're under her thumb," Noir said, and he sounded entirely indifferent.

Grabiner looked away, his cheeks coloring faintly. "And what if I am?" he demanded.

Noir shrugged and looked up at the sky again, shading his eyes with his hand.

"Just an observation," he said.

* * *

Near the buffet table, Amoretta left off in the middle of a very spirited discussion of backyard croquet with Ellen to study her husband and her father in the distance.

She hoped they were getting along all right.

She bit her lip briefly, but then felt a wave of relief as two familiar figures appeared out of the brush.

 _Thank goodness they came through,_  she thought. _I think Hieronymous needs some kind of break._

Amoretta was well aware that her father could be  _very intense._

* * *

"Are you _the Man?_ " asked Donald Danson with a smile that flashed like a sun. "The Black Diamond?"

Noir calmly took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and admitted, "Probably."

Donald offered his hand. "Great to meet you," he said. "I'm Donald Danson, one of the Fiddler's friends."

Noir took Donald's hand and shook it firmly, which apparently delighted the boy. Then Noir's eyes flicked over to Luke, who had been looking rapidly from Amoretta, who was still eating muffins near the buffet table, to Noir and back again.

When he spoke, it was with a squeak, then he was struggling to clear his throat as he bowed. "Hello, sir," he fairly stuttered. "I'm Luke Suze - " he balked, "I mean, Phifer, I'm Luke Phifer - the friend of your daughter, you know,  _Amoretta_ Suzerain - and I'm really pleased to - "

Noir put his cigarette back in his mouth.

"She's already married," he said flatly, not taking his eyes off Luke.

Luke's cheeks flushed a violent shade of magenta and he looked over his shoulder to make sure that Amoretta was not in earshot before breathing an obvious sigh of relief. Grabiner wasn't so sure he really ought to be relieved considering the supernaturally acute hearing Amoretta had displayed in listening for her father to strike a match. Noir's unlit cigarettes had not yet summoned his wrathful daughter, but Grabiner had the overpowering suspicion that the moment he attempted to strike a light she would be upon them like the secret police.

Still, Luke's relief seemed palpable, and he coughed again, admitting, "Of course, I know she's married, sir - "

"Just reminding you," Noir said with a lazy shrug, then he idly gave the boy a pat on the shoulder. "Nice to meet you, kid," he said.

He looked past them briefly, but then turned his eyes back to Donald.

"Where's the other one?" he asked.

"Logan?" Donald wanted to know. "You sure are well-informed."

Noir shrugged.

"My brother went home on business this morning," Luke said, having now gotten properly ahold of himself. "He sent his regrets that he wasn't able to meet you in person."

"Figures," Noir made a noncommittal move with his body. "Well, I'm sure I'll meet him in the long run."

"And why is that?" Grabiner demanded, crossing his arms over his chest again.

"Because he's mixed up with Amoretta," Noir answered evenly. "You get tangled up in that girl and you never get loose."

Luke let out an inadvertent and yet dramatically lovelorn sigh, and Noir shifted his eyes toward him again.

"She's already married," he repeated.

"I know!" Luke said, flushing hotly. "I wasn't saying anything - "

"No," Noir admitted with a mild shake of his head, "But you were sure  _thinking_ plenty of things."

"Sir - " Luke began bashfully, and Grabiner briefly worried the boy was going to have another inappropriately timed nosebleed, but Noir waved him off, apparently unconcerned.

"Don't apologize to me," he said idly. "You're not my son-in-law." Noir threw his thumb briefly over his shoulder at Grabiner, "And he's apparently unconcerned that you're lusting after his wife."

At that Luke lost all control of his faculties and was forced to sit down on the ground as he attempted to process what had just been said to him.

Grabiner rolled his eyes very expressively and said, with a dryness that might have rivaled the relative humidity of the Sahara, "Forgive me, Mr. Suzerain, but I do not find Mr. Phifer to be a threat to my continued happiness."

Even Donald winced at this. Luke looked as if he were having an intense crisis of faith.

"Wow, Prof," Donald said, clicking his tongue. "That was pretty  _cold_."

Grabiner shrugged briefly, and his expression did not change.

"That may well be so," Grabiner agreed, "But it is nevertheless true."

Donald Danson shrugged but ultimately seemed to be in agreement with him on this point, and they both stood looking at Luke as if he were an unfortunate and embarrassing stain on the carpet.

Noir apparently took pity on the troubled Phifer, because he fished in his pockets again, asking, "Do you want a cigarette, kid?"

Luke looked up unsteadily and raised one of his hands up to accept the offered contraband, saying, "I think I might need one."

Grabiner made an audible scoffing sound and intercepted the cigarette while it was in transit. "Mr. Suzerain, please do not encourage students to break both school rules and the law," he lectured his father-in-law. To Luke he advised, "I wouldn't. She won't like it."

That was enough for Luke, who suddenly became overwhelmingly uninterested in becoming a smoker.

"You know, Junior," Noir observed as he watched Grabiner put the cigarette away in one of his own pockets. "I think you'll do."

With his lackadaisical seal of approval given, Noir apparently considered his interview with Grabiner over, and sauntered off in the direction of the buffet table, where Petunia Potsdam sat enjoying a tea sandwich under a garden umbrella.

After a moment, Donald Danson and Logan Phifer followed him, leaving Grabiner alone, standing underneath the fir tree.

* * *

Seeing that their discussion had finally been concluded, Amoretta breathed a sigh of relief and crossed the green to where her husband stood alone, underneath an evergreen tree.

She passed her father as she did, and asked, "Well, what did you think? Did you like him?"

Noir had paused to judiciously tuck his unlit cigarette into a pocket, then turned his head to briefly look at his son-in-law, who stood with his arms folded inside his cloak, looking tired.

Noir nodded once.

"I'm not sending Carmine to beat the living shit out of him, if that's what you mean," Noir said.

Amoretta flushed and smiled, pleased with the answer. "Oh, that's very good. I'm happy."

"I know you are," said Noir simply, then he shrugged again and ambled off toward the table where the headmistress sat.

Amoretta gave Luke and Donald a brief thumbs up as she passed them, noting that Luke looked a little worse for wear.

 _Poor guy,_  she thought.  _Well, that's what comes from talking to papa._

When she met Grabiner under the tree, she said, "Well, you seemed to have survived."

Grabiner didn't answer immediately, apparently lost in thought. At last he nodded briefly, turning his eyes toward her.

"I did," he agreed, pushing his hat up and running one hand briefly through his hair, "But I'll be damned if that wasn't one of the most harrowing episodes of my life."

Amoretta laughed sympathetically, taking his arm. "Yes, well, papa has that effect on people."

Grabiner looked down at her with a raised eyebrow.

"And who was it who told me that he was a very nice man, and that I had nothing to worry about," he demanded.

"Well, he is a nice man," she said, then added, "As nice as you are."

She had said it very seriously, but when he looked down at her he found that her wicked little smile was there, curled up at the corner of her mouth.

"You little monster," he said heatedly. "I ought to lock you in a closet and never let you out."

"Better not say that where my father can hear you," she teased.

"I do not care," Grabiner said very deliberately, "Whether he hears or not."

And then, much to the astonishment of the student guests at Petunia Potsdam's garden party, Hieronymous Grabiner swept his cloak around his wife and leaned down to kiss her quite unashamedly.

As he did, all the leaves of the trees around the clearing began to nod, as the first drops of a summer rainstorm began to fall.


End file.
